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

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

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Preface: This article was originally written and published by Peter Swanson on “Loose Cannon” and is reproduced here in parallel by prior arrangement, as part of our team effort to cover this ongoing story to its full extent.
— Phil Friedman

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.