Unwritten Commission Arrangement Recovered in 12 Days
Avant Gardner, the company behind Brooklyn Mirage, denied any obligation on roughly $60,000 of commissions with no signed contract behind them. $45,000 was settled in 12 days.
$45K
settled pre-suit in 12 days
- Resolved
- Pre-suit
The situation
Avant Gardner, the company behind Brooklyn Mirage, terminated its Director of Premium Sales while substantial commissions remained unpaid — approximately $60,000. His compensation included a percentage of venue-wide table sales and commissions on personal sales, an arrangement the parties had never formally documented, so the venue's General Counsel took the position that no contractual basis for payment existed.
The approach
The agreement was established without a signed contract: contemporaneous compensation discussions, commission records, and correspondence involving a former vice president who confirmed he had approved the arrangement before leaving the company and who agreed to testify if litigation became necessary. The director's own retained notes, communications and sales records supplied the figures, and the claim was then reframed as unpaid compensation for services already performed — a statutory wage claim that on a $60,000 underpayment could expose the company to $120,000 in compensation and liquidated damages alone, before interest and recoverable attorney's fees.
The outcome
A few days after the demand, the General Counsel offered $35,000; that was declined and further evidence supplied, and two days later the venue increased its offer to $45,000. Measured against likely net recovery — negotiating a $60,000 settlement over another five or six months could leave an estimated $49,000 to $54,500 after additional attorney's fees — the client accepted $45,000 secured in 12 days, converting a denied commission obligation into a prompt recovery without litigation.
The full write-up
This page keeps the figures and the holding. The firm's own account of the matter, in full, is here:
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each matter is different, and the results described here were achieved on the specific facts of those matters.