Rightmove面临最高约16亿英镑集体诉讼的初步听证

Estate agents fear retaliation over Rightmove lawsuit, tribunal told
Estate agents fear retaliation from Rightmove if they provide evidence in a proposed £1.6bn lawsuit against the UK property website, a tribunal has heard.
Lawyers representing the claimants said a “significant number” of agents they had approached were concerned about “adverse commercial consequences”, given their dependence on Rightmove’s “must-have” platform.
The allegations were set out on Thursday at the first hearing in the proposed Competition Appeal Tribunal class action, which alleges Rightmove levies “excessive and unfair” listings charges.
Jeremy Newman, a former panel member at the Competition and Markets Authority, is seeking to launch the case on behalf of about 7,200 estate agents, lettings agents and home developers.
Newman wants to represent them on an “opt-out” basis, in which they would be deemed to be claimants automatically. He said traditional “opt-in” proceedings, in which claimants need to proactively sign up and provide their identities, “would not be practicable” — in part because of the retaliation fears.
London-listed Rightmove has become central to Britain’s residential sales and lettings markets. It accounts for more than 80 per cent of the time consumers spend on UK property portals, according to Comscore data cited by the company.
In a witness statement, Newman said estate agents had “expressed a concern that they might face retaliatory conduct from Rightmove or that their commercial relationship with Rightmove would be jeopardised should their name be made public or associated with the claim”.
However, Rob Williams KC, for Rightmove, told the tribunal on Thursday that the company “completely rejects the suggestion”.
He said Rightmove “sees them as partners” and “it would be shooting itself in the foot” if it retaliated. The barrister added in a written submission that Newman was “relying on hearsay evidence of concerns allegedly expressed”.
Rightmove’s lawyers have launched a disclosure application to require Newman to hand over various communications with the agents so it could “test the quality and the robustness of the evidence”.
Williams said Newman had not given a “clear or complete account of his communications” with agents.
The tribunal heard that Newman agreed to disclose some of the communications with agents’ identities redacted. But Rightmove’s lawyers said they wanted the names to test their claims against their relationships with the platform.
Williams said disclosure could be made into a “lawyers-only confidentiality ring”, a mechanism dismissed by Newman’s lawyers as “fanciful”.
Substantive arguments about the case, which is being financed by Innsworth Advisors, the litigation funding arm of US hedge fund Elliott, were not made at the preliminary hearing on Thursday.
Newman has previously said that estate agents “have had to absorb consistent, excessive price increases” by Rightmove, allowing the company to generate the widest profit margins in the FTSE 100.
He is seeking damages of “up to in the region of £1.6bn”, according to a written submission for the hearing on Thursday.
Rightmove has previously said the claim is “without merit, and we will defend it vigorously”.
The company said it was “confident in the value we provide to our partners and consumers, who are at the core of our business solutions and digital platform”.