Airbnb will finally have its day in court in New York this week, as the first oral arguments related to a subpoena filed by the state’s Attorney General are expected to be heard on Tuesday. 
 
 Last fall, the Attorney General filed a subpoena for thousands of records related to hosts in New York in an effort to identify bad actors and illegal activity on the platform. 
 
 While Airbnb said that it is also committed to removing bad actors on its website, the company argued that the subpoena is “unreasonably broad” in the amount of information requested by the government, and filed a motion objecting to it. 
 
 On Tuesday, the two parties will meet in court to argue each of their positions. 
 
 At the core of the dispute are illegal listings that the NY attorney general claims make up a disproportionate number of listings on Airbnb’s platform. While there is a narrowly defined law that allows residents to rent out rooms in their own apartments, the state is looking to go after hosts who operate multiple listings as a sort of virtual hotel. 
 
 Airbnb claims that about 87 percent of listings come from hosts renting out their own apartments, in many cases to help them make rent. But a study completed by data extraction company Connotate in late January found that in New York Airbnb had 19,522 listings and 15,677 unique hosts. 
 
 While the majority of those hosts had just one listing, the study found that 1,849 hosts had more than one listing for a total of 5,964 listings. In other words, 12 percent of hosts made up about 30 percent of listings in the city. 
 
 The company says it has been working to weed out hosts running large-scale rental operations. Data compiled by the NY AG late last week shows that not are there still a number of hosts with dozens of listings, but that since the subpoena was filed last fall, many have actually heavily increased the number of listings that they manage. 
 
 One host going under the name USA Stay! has more than 130 listings on the platform, according to that data. Meanwhile, two hosts have added 30 new listings in the months since the subpoena was filed. 
 
 In a blog post and email sent to NY hosts today, Airbnb public policy chief David Hantman said the company would fight the subpoena in court this week. He wrote: 
 
 The judge in this case could issue a ruling on Tuesday, or take weeks or even months to make up his mind. He could rule in our favor, or against us. He might ask the Attorney General to narrow his demand. If we are ordered to hand over any data, we will work to ensure you are properly notified before the government receives any information about you or your listing. 
 
 Regardless of the outcome, Hantman wrote that the company would hold a community meeting Wednesday at 7:00 PM and a webinar the next day at 11:00 am. ||||| Airbnb is said to have closed a $475 million round of financing from a group led by TPG Growth that values the home-sharing company at about $10 billion, Michael J. de la Merced writes in DealBook. At the value assigned by the investment, Airbnb — a website and app where homeowners and apartment dwellers rent their homes, spare rooms or couches to travelers — would be worth more than some established hotel chains like Wyndham Worldwide or Hyatt. Airbnb is also set to meet New York State’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, in court this week related to a subpoena filed last fall “to identify bad actors and illegal activity on the platform,” according to TechCrunch. The state is looking to crack down on hosts operating multiple listings. 
 
 GOLDMAN, CITI … AND A GUY IN AN OFFICE | “Anyone looking at the mergers and acquisitions ‘league tables’ — the Wall Street equivalent of Major League Baseball’s standings — during this hot year for merger activity would find the usual suspects: Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs vying for the top spot, with other brand-name firms jockeying to fill the coveted top 10,” James B. Stewart writes in the Common Sense column. “And then, at No. 11, there’s Paul J. Taubman.” “Mr. Taubman has single-handedly accounted for $175 billion in deals over the last year, which has had Wall Street bankers buzzing with a mix of admiration and envy,” Mr. Stewart writes, adding, “Although Mr. Taubman’s feat is unusual, he may be part of a fledgling trend toward merger and acquisition microfirms, or, as in his case, sole practitioners.” In Mr. Taubman’s case, his lofty ranking is based on two giant deals: Verizon’s $130 billion acquisition of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless — the biggest single deal of 2013 — and Comcast’s $45 billion attempt to take over Time Warner Cable. 
 
 SOTHEBY’S POISON PILL | The so-called poison pill was invented in the 1980s to fight off hostile raiders. But now, Sotheby’s — the auction house that has become a target for a number of hedge funds, including Daniel S. Loeb’s Third Point — has adopted a low-threshold poison pill “clearly aimed at the hedge funds, and Mr. Loeb in particular,” Steven M. Davidoff writes in the Deal Professor column. Third Point is running a proxy contest to replace three of Sotheby’s directors. Sotheby’s poison pill sets two limits for ownership — a 20 percent limit for passive investors like mutual funds and a 10 percent threshold for activist shareholders. Third Point sued Sotheby’s in Delaware Chancery Court in March, challenging the poison pill as illegal because it limited the hedge fund’s ability to buy more shares and so have a greater likelihood of winning the proxy contest. “The question now is whether the old cases upholding the poison pill will still apply in the case of activism. This is the fundamental question in the Sotheby’s case,” Mr. Davidoff writes. “In a hostile takeover, the company is about to undergo a change of control that will end its independence.” He adds: “But with shareholder activism, the issue is about steering the future direction of the company, not eliminating shareholders or the company itself. The company’s future independence or survival is not the primary question.” 
 
 ON THE AGENDA | The index of leading indicators for March is out at 10 a.m. Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network interviews Mayor Bill de Blasio at 9 a.m. Netflix reports first-quarter earnings. ||||| Nearly two-thirds of the city apartments recently listed on Airbnb were being offered in violation of the law, an analysis by state authorities has found. 
 
 The study of data from the subletting service’s own Web site showed 64 percent of its 19,500-plus offerings for Jan. 31 covered an “entire apartment,” says an affidavit from the state Attorney General’s Office. 
 
 By law, a “permanent resident” must be present to sublet an apartment for fewer than 30 days. 
 
 In addition, more than 200 of the offerings came from just five “hosts,” suggesting third parties were renting out pads on behalf of their owners. 
 
 “The top five hosts by number of listings had the following number of listings: 80, 35, 31, 29 and 28,” Sumanta Ray, director of research and analysis for the AG’s Investor Protection Bureau, wrote in the affidavit, obtained by The Post. 
 
 The affidavit will be filed in court Monday by state AG Eric Schneiderman’s office, sources said. The AG is heading to court Tuesday to subpoena Airbnb records to identify users who are illegally renting out apartments. 
 
 New Jersey-based tech firm Connotate extracted the data from Airbnb’s site and put it in a spreadsheet for the Investor Protection Bureau. Ray analyzed it for the AG’s Office. 
 
 Court filings by the AG’s Office say Airbnb is fueling an underground industry of “illegal hotels” that has led to a surge in complaints about parties that leave “vomit and baggage strewn in hallways” and other problems. 
 
 The Post revealed last week that hookers were setting up temporary brothels over Airbnb. 
 
 Tom Cayler, chairman of the West Side Neighborhood Alliance’s Illegal Hotel Committee, railed at the online service. 
 
 “Airbnb has just become a scourge,” said Cayler, 63, of Hell’s Kitchen. “You’ve already got the sex industry using Airbnb. How long will it be before the gamblers and the drug dealers figure it out?” 
 
 “When you come home at night, you won’t know if you’ve got a trick, a poker game or a cocaine deal going on next door.” 
 
 Tenants advocate Bennett Baumer said a row of buildings on West 49th Street has been used as illegal hotels through Airbnb. At least three apartments there were cited by the city last year based on complaints. 
 
 A rep for the buildings’ owner did not respond to a request for comment Sunday. 
 
 Airbnb on Sunday said it boots users who abuse its service. 
 
 “The small group of bad actors that abused our platform aren’t part of the Airbnb community anymore, or they are on their way out the door, ” it said, adding most users “are regular New Yorkers just trying to make ends meet.” 
 
 Airbnb, which claims it will pump $768 million into New York’s economy this year, also noted, “Short-term rental laws were never meant to apply to New Yorkers occasionally renting out their own home.”
– The majority of Airbnb offerings in New York City are illegal, the state's attorney general argues in an affidavit filed today, ahead of a court hearing with the start-up tomorrow. In January, the AG's office examined the site's more than 19,500 Big Apple offerings, and found that 64% of them offered renters an "entire apartment"—even though New York law requires at least one "permanent resident" remain in an apartment during a sublet of less than 30 days, the New York Post reports. The AG also found that more than 200 apartments had been posted by just five "hosts," suggesting that proxies were putting them up for their owners. Tomorrow's hearing is over a subpoena the AG has filed requesting info on thousands of "hosts," a subpoena that Airbnb has argued is "unreasonably broad," TechCrunch explains. The stakes are big: Airbnb recently completed a round of fundraising that values the company at $10 billion—making it significantly more valuable than major hotel chains like Hyatt, the New York Times reports.