Class-Action Plaintiff Drops Suit Over Cushman & Wakefield Data Breach

A class-action lawsuit filed against a global commercial real estate firm over allegedly failing to protect clients' personal data during a cyberattack was dropped by the plaintiff on Tuesday. 

Lead plaintiff Michelle Milewski, of Illinois, voluntarily dismissed the case against Cushman & Wakefield without prejudice, according to a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Each side is expected to cover its own costs and attorney fees.

Cushman & Wakefield and Milewski’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to Bisnow’s requests for comment on the suit’s dismissal.

The suit had alleged that Cushman & Wakefield “lost control” of clients’ names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and financial information through a cyberattack from hacker groups ShinyHunters and Qilin.

Chicago-based Cushman & Wakefield, which also has a regional office in Midtown Manhattan, confirmed the security breach in early May. However, the firm said the breach was a “limited data security incident” and that its operations and systems were running normally. 

Cybernews reported that ShinyHunters claimed to have accessed “more than 500,000” records from Cushman & Wakefield's sales team. The hacker group reportedly threatened to release the records on its dark web leak site unless the CRE firm made contact and paid an undisclosed ransom.

Cushman & Wakefield was also listed on Qilin's dark web leak site around the same time, Cybernews reported.

A Cushman & Wakefield spokesperson told Bisnow last month that the class-action suit was “baseless” and confirmed that the company didn’t contact ShinyHunters. 

Milewski had alleged she was flooded with scam emails, phone calls and text messages following the breach. The suit accused Cushman & Wakefield of negligence and of failing to implement industry-standard cybersecurity measures before or after the breach.

The lawsuit’s dismissal is the second major headline for the Chicago-based CRE brokerage in two days. 

Prime Finance has a preliminary agreement to acquire Cushman & Wakefield’s 31-story headquarters building at 225 W. Wacker Drive in Chicago from Spear Street Capital. The sale is reportedly valued at around $120M, making it one of the highest-priced recent office trades in the city.

However, that would still represent a 43% markdown from the $210M Spear Street paid for the building just over six years ago.