A New York judge held real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield in contempt of court — and slapped it with $10,000 daily fines — for failing to turn over documents in a probe of former President Donald Trump’s business dealings.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued the ruling Tuesday finding that the firm, which provided appraisal and brokerage services to the Trump Organization for years, didn’t fully comply with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ subpoenas.
The fines will begin accumulating Thursday, according to the decision.
James’ office since 2019 has been investigating allegations that Trump exaggerated company assets for loan, insurance and tax purposes, and further sued the company for allegedly stonewalling the probe.
Engoron found that Cushman & Wakefield didn’t meet his deadlines to turn over information to the AG about its appraisals of three Trump properties and about its relationship with the family firm.
“This court finds that Cushman & Wakefield’s willful non-compliance with court-ordered deadlines warrants imposing sanctions to coerce compliance,” the ruling reads.
The decision comes a week after Engoron ended the contempt ruling against the former president for also failing to comply with AG subpoenas.
A Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson said the company plans to appeal the ruling and maintained that it has been going to “extreme lengths” to comply with the subpoenas, having turned over “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and over 650 appraisals.”
“Cushman disagrees with any suggestion that the firm has not exercised diligence and good faith in complying with the Court’s order, and we will be appealing this decision,” the statement continued.
James lauded the ruling, saying: “Cushman & Wakefield’s work for Donald Trump and the Trump Organization is clearly relevant to our investigation, and we’re pleased that the court has recognized that and taken action to force Cushman to comply with our subpoenas.”