Less than a week later Movement has filed an amended motion for preliminary injunction in the ongoing lawsuit against CoStar, the commercial listing giant has fired back.
In a brief filed Wednesday, CoStar claims Move is seeking the injunction because Move’s Realtor.com loses market share to CoStar’s Homes.com. This comes after Move revealed that James Kaminsky, the former Move employee and current CoStar employee at the center of the legal battle, allegedly gained access to 40 stolen documents.
“As confirmed by Kaminsky’s testimony, Move’s CEO views CoStar as an ‘existential threat.’ Rather than competing on merits, Move is using lawsuits to wage a PR campaign against a rival that moves Move to market faster,” the filing said. “The desperate times of Move have given rise to such desperate measures as do not warrant injunctive relief.”
According to CoStar, Move’s request for a preliminary injunction is unreasonable because Kaminsky “had access to at least five unsecured documents related to Move’s ‘News and Insights’ activities after being fired by Move.”
In the filing and in statements from forensic experts, CoStar states that Kaminsky never had the documents in question in his CoStar account and that they were never sent to anyone at CoStar.
Defendant further notes that Move has not been able to demonstrate that Kaminsky had access to the documents on behalf of CoStar or that CoStar was aware of his access to the documents.
According to statements made by Kaminsky, he had access to the relevant documents “in January and February to assist in his job search after Move fired him.” He did this again “in March and April to enable him to contact certain former Move colleagues after starting at CoStar, and briefly between May 31 and June 3 when he was browsing files in connection with a personal tax issue.”
Furthermore, CoStar claims that “Move cannot identify any changes that CoStar made to its business or suffered as a result of Kaminsky’s access to the five Move documents.”
The filing also alleges that Move failed to treat the discovery of Kaminsky’s access to these documents with the sense of urgency it employs in its motion for injunctive relief, as Move waited a month after Kaminsky’s access was discovered before filing suit .
CoStar also addressed Move’s refusal to participate in expedited discovery, which CoStar said would have “underscored what Kaminsky told several colleagues at Move months ago, including two managers: he is not in the news editing business.” , assigning or editing them, but his work consists of editing articles about New York apartments.”
“Instead, Move buried its head in the sand – and refused to accept the discovery that any legitimate trade secret claimant would have made – because the facts contradicted the case it published in the media,” the filing said.
The Andy Florance-led CoStar also claims that a court order is not necessary because “at a fundamental level there is nothing to be ordered: neither CoStar nor Kaminsky have used or are still using Move’s documents.
“An injunction is therefore unnecessary in this case and would merely reward Move for filing and publicizing a lawsuit based on falsehoods about CoStar,” the filing adds. “CoStar would certainly face hardships based on the inevitable publicity that would accompany an injunction, amplified by Move’s ongoing PR campaign surrounding this lawsuit (a campaign that has already resulted in Move issuing a false press statement on the views of this Court and subsequently withdrew the case presented at the first hearing).”
In addition to its response, CoStar also submitted sealed depositions from forensic experts, several CoStar employees working with Kaminsky (including two supervisors), and Kaminsky himself.
In an emailed statement to HousingWireCoStar General Attorney Gene Boxer wrote that “Move has attempted to weaponize a lawsuit against CoStar and a former employee.” Calling these actions “desperate,” he recommended that Move instead focus its efforts on the class action lawsuit recently filed by brokers who allege Move and other parties sold them fake leads.
“To be clear, CoStar has never had any interest in Realtor.com’s strategies or alleged trade secrets because the ‘lead diversion’ tactic is anathema to Homes.com’s agent and the easy-to-use ‘your listing, your lead’ model . Move’s lawsuit is based on false, and now shifting, premises,” Boxer wrote.
“For starters, Move filed a case accusing CoStar of using Move documents to build a rival news business. This accusation was completely false, as we said publicly at the time. Nothing more than a PR stunt,” he added. “As Move knows, CoStar does not have these documents and has certainly not used them.
“When we wrote to Move’s lawyers threatening sanctions, Move quickly deteriorated. No wonder: Filing false claims in federal court has serious consequences. Move then tried to save its case with an even weaker new theory: admit that – in fact – no one at CoStar uses outdated Move documents, but maybe, just maybe, an employee who edits descriptions of New York apartments could use documents that he doesn’t have, to perform a task he doesn’t have: driving CoStar’s search engine optimization.
“This is speculative nonsense. CoStar has access to Move’s five so-called trade secrets and never has. Pretending that it is, pretending that Kaminsky has another job, and pretending that a handful of outdated and unsafe Move documents are trade secrets is the weakest case imaginable.”
Move told HousingWire it does not comment on pending litigation.
