Opinion ID: 382054
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Characterization of RML's Practices

Text: 27 We first consider the character of the restrictive practices to which the Government objects. The Government's primary concern is with the situation in which a properly licensed broker is barred from access to the multiple listing service because RML has determined that he fails to meet its membership criteria or because he cannot afford the membership fee. In this circumstance, RML's rules require it to deny him access to its pool of listings or to any other of its other services. Moreover, the rules prohibit any RML member from allowing the nonmember access to the listing pool or other RML services. 20 The problem presented is that addressed in cases involving concerted refusals to deal or group boycotts. 21 Knowledge of available listings of real estate is a broker's stock in trade. Marin County Board of Realtors, Inc. v. Palsson, 1976-1 Trade Cases P 60,898 at 68,901 (Cal.Sup.Ct. 1976); Oates v. Eastern Bergen County Multiple Listing Service, Inc., 113 N.J.Super. 371, 273 A.2d 795, 800 (Ch.Div. 1971); Grillo, supra, 219 A.2d at 646. A concerted denial of access to RML's listing service, when RML members have agreed to pool and share their listings, amounts to a group boycott of the nonmember. See, e.g., Oates, supra ; 273 A.2d at 803; Grillo, supra, 219 A.2d at 644. In Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U.S. 341, 83 S.Ct. 1246, 10 L.Ed.2d 389 (1963), the Supreme Court, in finding a Section 1 violation when the stock exchange ordered members to remove private wire connections with a nonmember broker, stated: 28 The concerted action of the Exchange and its members here was, in simple terms, a group boycott depriving petitioners of a valuable business service which they needed in order to compete effectively as broker-dealers in the over-the-counter securities market. 29 Id. at 1252. 22 We must therefore determine whether this group boycott offends Section 1 of the Sherman Act.