Airbnb Settles With San Francisco

By agreeing to settle with its hometown, San Francisco, Airbnb has cleared up outstanding litigation in two of its biggest U.S. markets. In December, the crowd-sourced housing rental company dropped a lawsuit in New York over fines for people who illegally list their homes on short-term rental platforms. In the San Francisco case, Airbnb agreed to the city’s demands that it be more transparent about its hosts and help enforce existing registration laws. The lawsuits were a potential hindrance to the company’s efforts to expand and go public. CEO Brian Chesky said the company may be ready to go public in a year, the New York Times reports. Airbnb and another short-term rental company, HomeAway, brought the lawsuit against San Francisco over a decision by the city’s Board of Supervisors to fine the companies $1,000 per day for every unregistered host on its service. “As Airbnb gears up to go public over the next couple of years, creating a stable environment with less regulatory uncertainty is good for them,” Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who studies the so-called sharing economy, told the Times. He added, “While it is well past the point where regulations pose an existential threat to the company, regulatory issues are still the biggest source of uncertainty about its future revenue streams.”