It’s been nearly a year that the Toronto Real Estate Board has been trying to clear its name with a former commissioner of the Competition Bureau. On Monday of this week, it was announced that TREB was off the hook (for now at least,) for taking part in anti-competitive practices.

The case was brought forward first by Melanie Aitken, former commissioner of the Competition Bureau. Ms. Aitken claimed that TREB had too much control over MLS listings and the information available within them. The accusation was that, by limiting the amount of data on MLS listings, TREB was knowingly or unknowingly, giving larger brokerages an edge over smaller firms and independent Realtors. Because these latter groups couldn’t see everything about a home, such as past purchase history, they weren’t working with the same information that the bigger brokerages were.

Ms. Aitken said that this violated competition laws, as it effectively eliminated the competition for those larger firms. And some smaller firms, such as Realtysellers Real Estate Inc. were paying the price. Realtysellers had to go out of business, and the president of the former company, Lawrence Dale, says that these MLS practices were to blame.

TREB however, said that it wasn’t making that information available on MLS in order to protect the privacy of their clients, as well as the proprietary of the MLS system.

After attorneys and representatives from both sides spent five years becoming familiar with the case, eight months preparing for the case, and two months in Toronto hearings last fall, a seven-page decision was reached, which effectively dismissed the case against TREB, and awarded them court costs.

But should consumers and home buyers be convinced?

The decision wasn’t made based strictly on the fact that TREB was found innocent of anti-competitive behaviour. It was due simply to a technicality, and the fact that the case was filed under the wrong section of the Competition Act.

The presiding judge in the ruling stated that the case would have had a better chance would it have been filed under section 90 of the Competition Act, rather than section 79. Section 90 is the component of the Act that deals with trade associations, which don’t really have traditional competitors.

This ruling does leave a small loophole where the case may be refiled, under the most appropriate section.

Do you think this case will go back to court?