Cushman & Wakefield faces a fine of $10,000 per day for contempt

(Bloomberg) — Former Trump Organization appraiser Cushman & Wakefield Inc. has been found in contempt of court and will be fined $10,000 a day for failing to produce documents subpoenaed in a New York investigation into his company Donald Trump.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating potentially fraudulent valuations of Manhattan real estate assets. She issued subpoenas for Cushman & Wakefield in September and February.

The assessor failed to block the subpoenas in court and on appeal and was ordered to turn over what the judge called “an enormous number of documents” by June 27. On June 29, he requested an extension.

Read more: Trump held in contempt of court over NY poll subpoenas

“This court is incredulous as to why Cushman & Wakefield would wait until two days after the expiration of the court-ordered deadline to initiate proceedings seeking yet another extension,” New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron wrote , in an order dated Tuesday. He said the fine will start from July 7 and will continue until the company complies.

Cushman & Wakefield said in an emailed statement that it had made “every effort” to comply with the court’s order.

“We went to great expense and effort to quickly identify, collect, review and produce the massive set of documents requested by the OAG, and have now produced over hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and over 650 assessments since the last subpoena. issued in February 2022,” the firm said, referring to the attorney general’s office. It said it would appeal the contempt decision.

In April, the judge held Trump himself in contempt for failing to turn over records related to the assessments, leading to $110,000 in fines against the former president before he was found in compliance last month. He called the James probe a political vendetta.

Read more: Trump ‘removed’ by contempt in NY subpoena case, judge says

In a statement on Twitter Wednesday, James said “no person or company, no matter how powerful, is above the law.”

The case is New York v. Trump Organization, 451685/2020, Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan).

(Updates with Cushman statement in sixth paragraph.)

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