Zillow CEO Richard Barton and Compass CEO Robert Reffkin (Credit: Zillow, Compass, iStock).
Zillow Group slammed Compass with two lawsuits late Friday, alleging the SoftBank-backed brokerage hired three executives in violation of their non-competes as it staffed up its nascent tech hub in Seattle. The lawsuits also claim that Compass actively sought to obtain proprietary information from Zillow to avoid building its own technology.
The suits — one filed in federal court and the other in Washington state court — also name Robert Chen, Zillow’s former head of artificial intelligence; Michael Hania, an enterprise sales executive; and Chester Millisock Jr., a software engineer.
“Compass actively recruited these employees in order to avoid the costs associated with open and honest competition and to obtain Zillow’s confidential and proprietary information,” court documents allege.
In the suits, Zillow said all three of its former executives violated 12-month non-competes with Zillow. They allegedly took proprietary information from Zillow in the days before they left the company, copying confidential customer lists, financial information, sales data and technical information on thumb drives and to DropBox.
In a statement, Zillow said it supports healthy competition to drive innovation. But, “Compass’s practices are something different; they are unlawful, and because we have a responsibility to protect our intellectual property, we are taking action,” the company said.
Compass said it was still reviewing the complaints and could not immediately provide a comment.
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