Cushman, Sotheby’s Settle $10M Commission Lawsuit

Cushman & Wakefield settled its lawsuit against Sotheby’s over a $10 million commission tied to the auction house’s Upper East Side headquarters sale.

The parties notified the court last month that they had reached a settlement, bringing the case to a close, according to a filing signed by New York State Supreme Court Justice Melissa Crane.

Both sides declined to comment on the settlement.

Cushman sued Sotheby’s in April, accusing the auction house of breaching a commission agreement connected to its October 2025 sale of 1334 York Avenue to Weill Cornell Medicine. Cushman claimed it spent years brokering a 200,000-square-foot lease at the building on behalf of Weill Cornell that ultimately paved the way for the $510 million sale.

At the time of the 2023 lease signing, Cushman alleged, both sides inked a separate agreement entitling the firm to a 2 percent commission on any sale to Weill Cornell during the 30-year lease term.

But Sotheby’s allegedly never informed the brokerage it was weighing a sale a few years later, and Cushman first learned of the deal through news reports. The brokerage sent Sotheby’s a $10.2 million commission bill in December, but the brokerage refused to pay it, “choosing instead to retain those funds to address its deteriorating financial condition,” the suit alleged.

Sotheby’s at the time called the lawsuit “baseless and completely meritless.”

The complaint painted a picture of a financially strained Sotheby’s seeking to shed debt tied to the property, including a $175 million mortgage. Cushman alleged the lease it arranged with Weill Cornell was “a financial life-preserver to Sotheby’s” that boosted the property’s value and ultimately helped Sotheby’s command a hefty sale price; the building traded for almost 40 percent more than the auction house paid in 2009.

Sotheby’s itself acknowledged the financial upside. Following the sale, Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart told staff in an e-mail the move would be “very financially beneficial,” noting proceeds would be used to reduce debt and fund investments, according to an article from the trade publication The Art Newspaper cited in the lawsuit.

The transaction capped a run of real estate moves by the auction house. In 2023, Sotheby’s bought the landmark Breuer Building from the Whitney for about $100 million, a year after it picked up a converted office building in Long Island City for $82 million.

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