Class-action lawsuit against IYBA & YachtWorld...

'Ya Mon' Yacht Broker Suit Is Back
This Time YachtWorld Parent Isn't on Defendant List
Peter Swanson
Aug 10


The billion-dollar lawsuit challenging the way yachtbrokers divvy up a seller’s commission money was thrown out of court in January 2025, but zombie-like it has crawled out of the grave with a notably changed menu. That is, list of defendants.

Ya Mon Expeditions v. Allied Marine asserted that the entire way in which America buys and sells boat is one big anti-competitive conspiracy between brokers, multiple-listing services and industry associations. Ya Mon’s key point was that prospective sellers are being forced to hire seller brokers, and then also forced to pay inflated commissions to buyer brokers.

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The lawsuit is a copy of a landmark case against the National Association of Realtors that changed the way properties are sold in the U.S. It took four years, but the plaintiffs prevailed when the realtors’ group decided to pay out $418 million rather than appeal an unfavorable verdict.

Last month, the Ya Mon lawyers filed an amended class-action complaint.

The delay between 2025 dismissal and the recent filing was due to an appeal that was sent to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals over the issue of whether the alleged wrongdoing should settled through arbitration on a case-by-case basis. One of the multiple-listing-service defendants, Yatco, had tried to make the base but lost in lower court.

In a June 10 ruling, the judges upheld the Ya Mon judge’s denial—arbitration was not applicable.

Ya Mon Defendants Today


Compared to the original Ya Mon defendant’s list, there are a few new names, but also a major omission. YachtWorld’s parent company, Boats Group, an online multiple-listing service and the dominant player in America’s used boat sales industry.

This development is a mystery, but two things may be at play. Maybe, the Ya Mon people decided that their case would be easier to make without Boats as a defendant, or maybe Boats made a settlement offer that Ya Mon accepted.

Then in the middle of all this, Boat’s itself became a defendant anew as a yacht broker sued the group, making allegations similar to those against brokers in Ya Mon.

Brill Maritime sued Boats Group in August 2025, alleging violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Brill alleged that it had been “directly harmed by Boats Group’s conduct…forced to pay supracompetitive prices for essential marketing services with effectively zero viable alternatives available.”

In June, Judge Roy K. Altman dismissed that case, too. Loose Cannon explained Altman’s thinking:

It wasn’t because the preliminary evidence fell short of proving the YachtWorld monopoly. The judge said that Brill had made a good case that the defendant controls 75 percent of the global market and operates the dominant U.S. platforms. However, Altman also said that evidence suggested that the YachtWorld parent had earned its marketplace supremacy fair and square.

Two weeks later, Brill lawyers had filed their own amended complaint to keep the suit alive, though most of the juicy bits contesting the notion of “fair and square” were redacted.

Serving as a reminder that America’s civil courts exist in a world of the long goodbye.



Judge in YachtWorld Case Can Peek Behind Corporate Veil, Not Us.
Peter Swanson

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Jul 3
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