A New York District Court has ruled that Pace Gallery must pay one of the city’s biggest real estate firms, CBRE, $6.3 million.
The decision, which was first reported by ARTnews, effectively concludes a dispute between the two parties that goes back five years.
In April 2017, CBRE filed a complaint alleging that Pace owed the firm over $3 million in commissions for assisting the gallery in securing a new location for its flagship branch in the neighborhood of Chelsea.
The filing claims that Pace’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Harnden met with real estate broker and CBRE Senior Vice President Stuart Siegel in early 2014 to discuss the agreement. The two allegedly agreed CBRE would have the “exclusive right to locate, negotiate and secure a lease for Pace.”
For the rest of that year, the complaint explains, Siegel worked to identify new potential locations. He also negotiated with Weinberg Properties, the development company that owns the property Pace already occupied at 540 West 25th Street.
In 2015, Harnden advised Siegel that Pace had agreed to terms with Weinberg on a new lease at the location.
In the court document, CBRE alleged that it was owed a market rate of $3 million for Siegel’s services. But because the final lease negotiation occurred directly between Pace and Weinberg Properties, Harnden said the gallery would not pay CBRE’s commission fee.
Last week, the case went before a jury, which ordered Pace to pay $6,308,604 in damages.
CBRE’s lawyer confirmed the jury’s verdict but declined to comment further. A Pace spokesperson did not respond to Artnet News’s request for comment, nor did the gallery’s attorney in the case.
More Trending Stories:
The Art World Is Actually Not Very Creative About What It Values. What Would It Take to Change That?
‘It’s My Damaged Rembrandt’: New Book Asserts a Downgraded Portrait of the Dutch Master Is the Real Deal
Introducing the 2022 Burns Halperin Report
Possibly the Oldest Pair of Levi’s Jeans, Salvaged From an 1857 Shipwreck, Just Auctioned for a Deep-Pocketed $114,000
Mr. Brainwash, Made Famous in the Banksy Documentary, Opens His Own Art Museum Where Guests Enter Through the Gift Shop
Click Here to See Our Latest Artnet Auctions, Live Now
Venturing into unknown territory, artists Katrin Fridriks and Jan Kaláb took a chance on one…
Pushing the boundaries of artistic expression, visionary artist Melissa Herrington’s large-scale, abstract paintings blur the boundaries between mediums,…
Alexandre Iakovleff (1887-1938) - famous Russian painter, graphic artist, master of drawing, portraitist, author of…
Drawing inspiration from a wide breadth of sources, including ancient mythology, fairy tales and fables,…
It is irregular for illustrators to work alongside research and development industries, such as public…
Beginning Thursday, April 4 and running through Thursday May 18, Cavalier Gallery is pleased to present the…