He said the coverage cost him $2 million a year - the court wasn't convinced
A former general counsel who says he resigned on good terms lost his defamation suit over news coverage of his exit.
On August 18, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that two articles about the departure of Cushman & Wakefield's top lawyer were not defamatory. The panel affirmed the dismissal of his suit against publisher ALM Global and its reporter.
The former general counsel spent nine years at the commercial real estate services firm, resigning in March 2023. Neither he nor Cushman said publicly why he left. He alleges he stepped down voluntarily and on friendly terms.
During his tenure, he oversaw outside lawyers the company hired to answer subpoenas from the New York Attorney General. Those subpoenas were tied to a civil lawsuit alleging the Trump Organization had "engaged in financial fraud" over property valuations. Cushman received the subpoenas as a third party and was not a defendant, and the former general counsel was not a party to that case. A judge held Cushman in contempt for missing subpoena deadlines and set a daily fine. A different judge later extended the deadline, purged the contempt, and scrapped the fines.
A month after he left, Cushman named a new general counsel. The next day, the publisher ran an article headlined "Cushman Replaces GC in Wake of Company's Rebuke by Judge in Trump Probe." He argued the headline made it look like he was pushed...
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