NAR subpoenas American Real Estate Association in ThePLS.com Clear Cooperation lawsuit

As part of the ongoing lawsuit between Mauricio Umansky’s ThePLS.com and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the trade association has attempted to subpoena documents from the American Real Estate Association (ARA), the NAR alternative founded by Umansky and Compass agent Jason Haber. 

The subpoena seek any documents, contracts, invoices and all communications between ARA, thePLS.com and theNLS.com, the Spanish counterpart of PLS from ARA and Haber. Additionally, NAR also asked to see communications about the Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP) and the NAR Accountability Project, a group founded by Haber in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced against former NAR President Kenny Parcell in late August 2023. 

According to the filing, the subpoena was issued in May with documents requested by no later than June 18. 

In an post on Instagram on Monday, Haber said that neither he nor ARA will meet NAR’s request for documents dating back to January 1, 2017, as they “include highly sensitive conversations with victims who came forward about harassment inside NAR.”

“The NAR Accountability Project shut down before ARA even existed. I’ll leave it to you to ask what its files have to do with a case about private listings,” he said. “ARA is objecting in the strongest possible terms. We will not allow a legal filing about a listing network to compromise the privacy of people who had the courage to come forward.”

On going legal battle

The subpoena is one of the latest developments in a years-long legal battle between ThePLS.com and NAR over CCP. ThePLS.com originally filed it antitrust lawsuit against NAR, California Regional MLS (CRMLS), Bright MLS and Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) — are now named as co-conspirators. The MLSs were dismissed from the initial suit with prejudice in January 2024.

NAR was also dismissed from the initial suit at that time, but without prejudice, meaning that the PLS was allowed to refile the suit, which it did in July of 2025. 

In the renewed lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that NAR is “a combination or conspiracy among its members, who are licensed real estate professionals who compete with one another.”

The PLS alleges that the adoption and enforcement of CCP by NAR and Realtor-affiliated MLSs is “the product of agreements and concerted action among the MLS Conspirators and between and among each NAR-affiliated MLS and their members.”

By requiring all listings to be submitted to the MLS, the PLS claims that CCP “eliminates the ability of listing networks that compete with the NAR-affiliated MLSs to feature listings that are not on the NAR-affiliated MLSs.”

The plaintiff argues this “degrades the quality of competing listing networks, reduces the incentives of licensed real estate professionals to use those competing listing networks, and makes those competing listing networks less effective competitors to the NAR-affiliated MLSs.” 

Additionally, the suit claims that CCP “has had actual and substantial anticompetitive effects by eliminating the ability and incentive of licensed real estate professionals to market pocket listings through PLS,” as well as other listing networks, thereby harming competition among listing network services.

In September 2025, NAR responded to thePLS.com’s renewed claims, arguing that the plaintiffs have not experiences any “antitrust injury.”