Last week I mentioned a dispute between Sotheby's and its landlord. I said it was a little hard to parse what was going on from the press reports. A colleague with knowledge of the dispute comes to the rescue:
"Sothebys has a right of first refusal on any sale by the owner (Aby Rosen). A couple of years ago Rosen sold a large equity stake in the project to a third party. The documents are poorly drafted and are ambiguous as to whether the right of first refusal applies to a sale of less than 100% of the equity interests in the entity that owns the building. That's what the dispute is about."
