Docket Watch: Broker Fees, Bankman-Fried
The long-running debate over who pays broker fees on New York City rentals heads to the Second Circuit today, as a real estate industry group looks to defeat a ban on passing the costs from landlords to tenants.
The Real Estate Board of New York, representing property owners, will argue against a city law that requires landlords rather than tenants pay fees for hiring listing brokers.
They say the law interferes with agreements between landlords and brokers, in violation of the US Constitution’s bar against impairing private contracts. They also argue the law violates the free-speech rights of landlords and brokers who publish listings.
The law took effect in June after a district court declined to block it. A state court in 2020 blocked a statewide version of the policy from taking effect.
New York and Boston were the only major American cities where such fees were passed to tenants even if the tenants didn’t hire the brokers — long a thorn in the side of New York renters. (Massachusetts also recently banned the practice.)
Tenant advocates, who support the law, argue the fees pose yet another affordability hurdle to living in the city, while the industry has said passing the fees to landlords only results in higher rents.
Fox Rothschild partner Joshua Kopelowitz, a co-chair of the firm’s national Real Estate Litigation Group who isn’t representing either party in the case, believes that because of the challenged law, “the costs will will simply shift to base rent or otherwise.” But he told me he doesn’t foresee the Second Circuit striking the law down: “The current trend in New York is to restrict the real estate market.” Docket
Here’s what else I’m watching this week:
- Sam Bankman-Fried will ask the Second Circuit on Tuesday to toss his fraud and conspiracy convictions. The FTX co-founder, who’s serving a 25-year sentence for stealing billions from customers of his now defunct crypto exchange, says his rights were violated by a “sentence first-verdict afterwards tsunami” and a judge with a “troubling degree of bias.” Docket
- Former Queens Councilman and ex-City Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich is back in Manhattan criminal court on Thursday facing bribery charges. Once a rising Republican star, Ulrich joined a group of Eric Adams aides facing criminal charges after his indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The case, after two years, could head to trial soon. Docket
- A Manhattan federal judge on Friday will hear New York City’s arguments seeking to stop the Trump administration from pulling grants for magnet schools over the schools’ policies supporting transgender students. The administration’s decision to discontinue the grants resulted in a loss of $15 million, the city says in its complaint. Docket
Q&A: HSF Kramer’s Jilan Kamal
Jilan Kamal is a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer who handles white-collar criminal defense among other areas.
She joined the firm’s New York litigation office earlier this year after nearly a decade as a Southern District of New York prosecutor.
By Zoom, she told me why it helps to have a sense of humor in the courtroom and the lower Manhattan lunch spots she’s been going to since her intern era.
MV: What’s the biggest challenge facing attorneys in 2025?
JK: Uncertainty. We have seen sweeping change across the profession in the past year as a result of changes in the law and changes of policy at the federal level with this administration.
Whether it’s trade and tariffs or energy policy, immigration, cryptocurrency, deregulation, the “America First” agenda, companies and individuals need legal advice now more than ever. As attorneys, we need to have our fingers on the pulse of government and to be updating our playbooks constantly.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement seems to be one of the shifting priorities for the government in your practice area.
JK: Reports of the FCPA’s death have been greatly exaggerated. If you take the administration at its word, and I don’t have any reason to think we wouldn’t, it’s a matter of who the targets of those investigations and enforcement actions are going to be.
The administration has been clear that they are looking to enforce the FCPA where they see corruption operating to the detriment of US companies, and so whether or not that risk is present is about who your competitors are and what industries you are in.
Is it better to be a bulldog in the courtroom or underestimated?
JK: I don’t mean to buck the hypothetical, but it’s better to be yourself. The best version of yourself, but you can’t be a character.
If you are a table-pounder by nature — and I know some — then go for it. But don’t put on an act. New York juries, in particular, recognize shtick when they see it, and they don’t buy it, and judges have a little patience for it. So if you really are trying to win people over, you’re more likely to do it if you’re being sincere.
With that said, in my experience, one of the most powerful weapons you can have in a courtroom is a sense of humor. Because if you can make people laugh, it’s a way of showing people that you both see the world the same way. And that can be very persuasive.
It’s the court lunch break at SDNY and you’re famished. Where are you going?
JK: Depends how long I have. If I’m on trial, I’m not leaving the building. But if just have to go back in the afternoon, I’m going to Nha Trang on Baxter. From the time I interned in that courthouse at 500 Pearl all the way to my last days as an AUSA I’ve been eating lunch there.
And if I have time to linger — like if I’ve put on all my witnesses and the day’s over — then I’ll go to the Odeon. I’ve been going there for so long that I feel like I run into past versions of myself anytime I go.
This interview had been condensed and edited. Read last week’s Q&A with Benesch’s Matthew Fox here. Email me to participate at mvilensky@bloombergindustry.com.
They Said It
“We have big problems, but they would be much, much worse, but for the New York Police Department. They’re getting ahead of things.
The New York Police Department does all of that with difficult headwinds: The inability to get detention of people who are charged with crimes. Because state judges are not allowed to consider safety to the public when they make a detention decision.
That’s something that every New Yorker needs to know and needs to think about. Is that really how we want to run the railroad?”
—Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton, interviewed by John Catsimatidis on 77 WABC on Sunday, touted the NYPD and criticized New York’s bail policies. He declined to weigh in directly on New York City’s mayoral race.
Texas v. New York
A New York judge on Friday tossed Texas’ lawsuit seeking to enforce a fine against a doctor who remotely prescribed abortion medication, in a case that’s pitted Texas’ restrictive abortion policies against a New York law shielding doctors from out-of-state liability.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in July sued acting Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck after the clerk declined to enforce a Texas court order against New Paltz physician Maggie Carpenter. Carpenter’s facing charges in Texas for remotely prescribing mifepristone to a Dallas-area woman.
Ulster County Judge David Gandin said the medical services Carpenter provided fall “squarely within the definition of ‘legally protected health activity’” in New York.
Bruck “acted in accordance” with the law when refusing to enforce Paxton’s $113,000 fine against Carpenter, the judge said. Bruck had cited New York’s Shield Law, enacted to protect physicians who provide abortion medication from legal action in other states after the US Supreme Court ended a constitutional right to an abortion. Read more from my colleague Beth Wang.
Finance
George Weiss Payment Deal With Wife Rejected by Bankruptcy Court
A Florida judge overseeing the bankruptcy of hedge fund manager George Allen Weiss denied a proposed settlement with his wife over missed anniversary payments spanning the past 10 years.
Quant Trader Charged With Source-Code Theft Seeks Case Dismissal
A former
In the Courts
Former Employment Investigator Settles Leave Retaliation Suit
A man who conducted employment investigations for Wells Fargo agreed to settle allegations he was fired for taking leave to take care of his wife.
Garnet Health to Pay $4.6 Million to Exit Retirement Fee Lawsuit
Garnet Health Medical Center agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle with a proposed class of workers who said the New York health system’s retirement plan was plagued by high fees and poorly performing funds.
Policy & Politics
Trump Says Immigration Raids ‘Haven’t Gone Far Enough’
President
Mamdani’s Edge Has Democrats Wondering If He’s a Model or Fluke
Commentary & Opinion
Mamdani Benefits From NYC’s New Workforce: Allison Schrager
Is the city that defines modern capitalism really about to elect a self-described democratic socialist as mayor? If the answer turns out to be yes, as seems likely, then the explanation may lie in New York City’s evolving economy, which now includes fewer hard-charging Wall Street capitalists and more people who work in care services, government, creative industries and the non-profit world.
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