Here are some articles related to these lawsuits and what they mean

From the NAR themselves
From US News and World Report

Here’s my summary:

In May 2024, the National Association of Realtors settled a series of class-action lawsuits alleging that its compensation rules, which forced selling agents to advertise compensation for buyer’s agents on listings, essentially amounted to antitrust, reducing competition and artificially inflating commission prices.

The bulk of the $400M settlement went into effect in August 2024 and caused the NAR agree to a slew of industrywide changes.

What changed?

For home sellers – Its no longer standard practice that you pay the commission to the buyer’s Realtor. Also, any commissions you do agree to pay can no longer be disclosed in the Multiple Listing System (MLS). 

This means you could agree to pay your Listing Agent anything you negotiate, and agree to pay the Buyer’s Agent the same commission (the old system), or a different commission, or nothing. 

Again, none of this can be disclosed in the MLS system, so agents can’t pick and choose what homes they show based on commissions. 

For home buyers – when you engage with a Realtor to view homes, you now have to sign an agreement which states, at least for the one home you are asking to see, how the Realtor gets compensated. This compensation can come from the Seller, if they have agreed to pay any, or from the home buyer.

What does it mean?

Well, to me, this is about time!

The mere idea that it used to cost a seller 6-7% of the total value of their home to list in the MLS system was ludicrous and was worthy of a $400M class action lawsuit.

Now that Realtors are no longer burdened by any commission rules, from the NAR or our own Brokers, we are free to compete, get creative, and specifically, get away from the extremely unfair “traditional” 5-7% commission structures.