April 9, 2026
A Missouri federal judge refused Thursday to let a Berkshire Hathaway unit duck an antitrust lawsuit over real estate broker compensation rules, concluding the company cannot use its relationship with subsidiary brokerage HomeServices of America Inc. or a major settlement that HSA struck in a related case.Â
U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough said HSA’s $250 million deal — inked in parallel to a $418 million National Association of Realtors settlement that promised to overhaul the home-buying process in the United States — explicitly excluded HSA parent company Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co.
Nor, Judge Bough said, can Berkshire Hathaway win summary judgment against claims of anticompetitive conspiracy by arguing it and HSA amount to a “single enterprise” that cannot conspire with itself.
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The class is represented by Alexander Aiken, Beatrice Franklin, Floyd G. Short, Marc M. Seltzer, Steven G. Sklaver, George R. El-Khoury and Matthew R. Berry of Susman Godfrey LLP, Robert A. Braun, Daniel H. Silverman, Benjamin D. Brown and Sabrina Merold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Brandon J.B. Boulware and Jeremy M. Suhr of Boulware Law LLC, Eric L. Dirks of Williams Dirks Dameron LLC, Michael S. Ketchmark and Scott A. McCreight of Ketchmark & McCreight PC, and Steve W. Berman, Jeannie Y. Evans, Nathan Emmons and Rio S. Pierce of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.
Read Berkshire Unit Can’t Use Broker Fee Deal to Duck Antitrust Suit.