West Coast Yacht Brokers Arrive Late to the Billion-Dollar Litigation Party

A Small Florida Brokerage Finds Itself Suddenly in the Clear. Others, Too

Yes, an AI-generated image.

Now that four yacht brokerage lawsuits have been consolidated into a single case, complaints from each have been rewritten into a single, more persuasive argument that eliminates some of the early idiocies of the litigation.

While they were at it, plaintiffs’ lawyers added two West Coast broker associations to the long list of defendants, while dropping some others.

Sunshine Cruising Yachts, which had been a defendant in one of the underlying lawsuits, is not now listed as such in the consolidated case. The deletion must come as a relief to Melanie Sunshine Neale, who was gobsmacked when she first learned that her “boutique brokerage” had been targeted alongside a collection of yacht sales giants.

Besides Sunshine, the following firms that were included in one or more of the four initial lawsuits do not appear as defendants in the June 10 consoliated complaint: Sharon & Jack Malatich, Tournament Yacht Sales, International Yacht Corporation, Rick Obey Yacht Sales, Ocean Independence Yachts, Worth Avenue Yachts, Catamaran Sales and The Multihull Company.

The June 10 complaint filed in Ya Mon Expeditions vs. Allied Marine (and 20 other entities) has quantified the stakes, citing annual gross yacht sales in the billions of dollars. “And as a result of collusive, anticompetitive conduct among boating multiple-listing services, yacht broker associations and boat broker firms, boat sellers pay hundreds of millions of dollars more in commissions every year than they would in a competitive market,” lawyers for Ya Mon wrote.

The suit covers a four-year period ending on Feb. 29, 2024, the initial Ya Mon filing date. That means that money the plaintiffs are seeking to recover is four times “hundreds of millions of dollars,” plus triple damages as provided for in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, so a total of $1 billion or more is not out of the question.

Lawsuit Rocks the Yacht-Sales World