Loeb's court efforts eventually failed, but he won a board seat for himself, as well as two additional seats for directors that received his blessing— moves that appeared to soften his stance toward the company. The e-mail exchanges, however, were not forgotten by McGuire, who highlighted them in his own letter to Sotheby's on Friday. Citing Ruprecht's statement that he needed a Sotheby's board seat for reasons of "validation," McGuire wrote that "I was offered a board seat and I declined because I would only serve on the condition that Sotheby's commit to certain capital allocation targets; a condition the company resisted."