Left to right: Manhattan Residential’s Shai Shustik, Elliman’s Stanley Ginsberg, 140 Thompson Street, former New York City Mayor Abraham Beame

The Real Estate Board of New York is scheduled to hear an appeal tomorrow in a long-running commission dispute between Manhattan Residential and Prudential Douglas Elliman. In April, a three-member arbitration panel dismissed a REBNY complaint by Manhattan residential broker Shai Shustik, who alleged that Elliman blocked his client, Laurence Beame, from buying a Soho apartment so it would not have to share the commission. Lawyers for Shustik claim a lawsuit that he previously filed in New York state Supreme Court, should have been allowed to proceed, instead of being forced into arbitration. He also claims that critical evidence was withheld in the arbitration case and two members of the three-member REBNY panel should have been disqualified due to business ties with Elliman. [more]