Image: The London HQ of Permira the beneficial owner of YachtWorld_Credit WikiCommons
Crowning Cruella De Vil as queen of YachtWorld would not make the online boat marketplace any less popular than it is now to industry professionals. The leading online source for boat listings in the brokerage world, YachtWorld continues to thrive while many of its customers—American boat brokers—complain that they are being held against their will by a private equity bully.
In August 2025, Brill Maritime doing business as Export Yacht Sales, a Miami-based brokerage, filed a class-action lawsuit against Yachtworld’s parent company Boats Group (Boats) in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The suit alleges that Boats and its subsidiaries constitute a monopoly under federal law and unfair competition under Florida law.
Then, the lawyers for Boats replied with what has to be considered a fair point, essentially acknowledging that the suit against it was motivated by something akin to loathing. Boats lawyers cited the fact that the International Yacht Brokers Association had launched a competing online sales platform, Yachtr, in 2024 in response to member outrage about rising subscription prices for YachtWorld listings. Writing about Yachtr, the lawyers said:
“Although it never discloses this fact to the court, (Brill Maritime) is a member of the IYBA and therefore is not only a customer of Boats Group, but also a competitor that resents Boats Group’s success. With this lawsuit, Export (aka Brill) aims to weaponize the antitrust laws to take down its rival for its personal benefit. Indeed, IYBA’s hostility towards and targeting of Boats Group is a matter of public record, with IYBA stating that ‘Yachtr is taking control from private enterprise solutions and putting it back in the hands of the community’.”
Maritime Attorney Todd Lochner of Boatinglaw.com said the case could have far reaching consequences for brokers nationwide. “The outcome could directly affect how much brokers pay to market their listings, what platforms they can use, and how competitive the marketplace for online boat sales will be in the future,” said Lochner, who does not represent either party.
Asking the judge to throw out the case, Boats lawyers noted that YachtWorld could not possibly constitute a monopoly because boat sellers had several alternatives, including Yachtr, platforms such as Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist, marine magazines, or through dealerships and manufacturers.
“Export complains that prices for Boats Group’s services are too high but never alleges a competitive price or provides any allegations suggesting that Boats Group’s prices reflect anything but the quality of its products,” wrote Attorney Sean A. Burstyn, representing Boats.
Neil Chapman is founder of Boatshed, one of the largest international yacht brokerages in the world. The UK-based company was founded in 1999 and is built around an advanced online sales platform (represented in Seattle by broker Scott Helker).
Chapman raised the issue of whether what the lawsuit calls monopoly is actually dependency.
“YachtWorld’s strength was never its technology. The early website was basic, even clunky. What mattered was time. Founded in 1995, it grew steadily, embedded itself into broker workflows, partnered with associations, and positioned itself as the default shop window,” he said. “The lawsuit against YachtWorld may dominate headlines, but it should not shock anyone. Dependency, once it became expensive, was bound to feel like monopoly.”
Curtis Stokes is proof that there is commercial life after YachtWorld. Stokes is president of the brokerage that bears his name. His company sells all sorts of recreational vessels, but it has carved out a reputation as the big fish in the small pond that is the East Coast trawler-yacht market. His brokerage network employs 30 brokers and sells a respectable 20 to 45 boats a month, he said.
Stokes said he doesn’t “trust Boats Group as far as I can throw them,” but he also observed that his own continuing success is real-world proof that Boats Group is not a monopoly. Stokes quit listing boats on YachtWorld in 2023. He said the business is doing just fine today. Other, mostly smaller players, have followed suit, including a coalition of catamaran sales outfits in Annapolis.
Rancor did not factor into the decision to pull out of YachtWorld. Strictly business, Stokes said, the listings were not worth the cost. “We were paying $10,000 a month, and I bet you if we were still with them, it would be over $20,000 a month now,” Stokes said.
Of course, the big impact of Brill Maritime Vs. Boats will be felt at the opposite corner of the United States in the superheated boat market that is South Florida. But that does not mean that the West Coast in general and the Pacific Northwest in particular don’t have strong feelings on the matter. These markets tend to be served by smaller, more familial brokerage houses.
One such brokerage is South Mountain Yachts in Orange County, California, owned by Lou Mencuccini Jr., a 20-plus year veteran of the business. Mencuccini said he quit listing with YachtWorld in 2024 when his monthly fee jumped from $950 to $1,800, Mencuccini said he just couldn’t afford to pay, and he didn’t like being called a “piss-ant broker.”
“At one point in time I was told by their senior management their objective was to ‘drive all you piss-ant brokers out of business.’ I wish I had it recorded,” Mencuccini said.
The next step in Brill Maritime Vs. Boats is a May 18 date with a mediator. U.S. District Judge Roy Altman has signaled that should mediation fail to produce a settlement, the case will probably get past the motion to dismiss—as lawyers like to say—and either go to trial or to settlement later in the process. “From our preliminary peek at the pending motion to dismiss, we can’t reliably conclude that the plaintiff’s claims are unmeritorious,” Altman wrote.
So the saga continues. Whether YachtWorld is deemed an illegal monopoly or a successful business with litigious haters will be determined in the months, perhaps even years, ahead.
