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Cushman & Wakefield Seeks To Dismiss Lawsuit Over NYC Leasing Contract

New York

Cushman & Wakefield is asking a New York judge to dismiss allegations that it defamed a woman-owned real estate firm and sought to cut the firm out of the New York City government contracts they long held as a partnership.

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A rendering of the Bronx Logistics Center, where JRT Realty alleges it was cut out of a potential multimillion-dollar city deal.

The motion to dismiss, filed Monday with the New York County Supreme Court, says JRT Realty's suit’s “core claim would be laughable if the stakes were not so serious.”

The suit, filed in January, accused Cushman & Wakefield of attempting to freeze JRT out of conversations with city officials, leasing commissions and future deals. In its attempts to remove JRT from its dealings, Cushman cited “performance issues” — a term that JRT claimed in its filing is defamatory.

JRT’s suit also says that NYC’s deputy commissioner for real estate services at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, longtime Mayor Eric Adams ally Jesse Hamilton, had threatened to take away Cushman's leasing account with the city unless it placed Diana Boutross — who had specialized in retail deals but had a personal relationship with Hamilton — at the helm of the account.

“This lawsuit is meritless, frivolous, and should be dismissed,” a Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson told Bisnow by email. 

JRT Realty didn’t immediately respond to Bisnow’s request for comment.

Cushman's filing doesn’t address JRT’s claims of interference by City Hall employees, instead zeroing in on the defamation allegations and providing its own reasons for the end of its working relationship with JRT.

A spring 2024 change to City Hall’s requirements to work with minority-, woman- or Black-owned businesses meant that working solely with JRT — a woman-owned business but not minority-owned — was no longer sufficient, Cushman's lawyers argue in the filing.

“Now, JRT could satisfy only the 10% woman-owned business requirement but not the new 10% utilization requirements for each of Black and Hispanic owned businesses,” the filing says. “Given its issues with JRT and because it could no longer fulfill its MBWE goals through an exclusive relationship with JRT, Cushman had no intention of maintaining an exclusive MWBE relationship with JRT.”

The “issues” mentioned by Cushman & Wakefield’s lawyers include a mid-2023 warning from DCAS that it had concerns about its projects with the brokerage, including those that involved JRT, according to the filing.

That warning was what motivated Cushman & Wakefield to put a three-person team of Boutross and office brokers Ron Lo Russo and Gus Field in charge of the DCAS contract. But JRT didn’t take the change well, Cushman claims.

“JRT disapproved of Cushman’s chosen trio, especially Boutross, whom JRT derided as a ‘retail broker.’ JRT made no secret of its views regarding Boutross,” the motion says. “In meetings, JRT members engaged in unprofessional behavior such as rolling their eyes when Boutross was speaking and copying clients on internal communications when they disagreed with Boutross.”

Cushman & Wakefield originally cited “performance issues” in an email to DCAS explaining its decision to let its long-term relationship with JRT cease, but it later removed the phrase to appease JRT, the suit says.

The phrase, in addition to being protected under free speech laws, doesn't meet the legal standards for actual malice and hasn't caused JRT tangible harm, Cushman & Wakefield’s lawyers argue. The brokerage asked the judge to dismiss the case and award it compensation for attorney fees.

“Rather than accept the change to this relationship as is typical in the normal course of business, JRT has decided to file a frivolous lawsuit and orchestrate a coordinated PR and lobbying campaign to damage Cushman’s ability to conduct future work with DCAS,” Cushman's spokesperson said in a statement.