A recent Law 360 story by Chris Villani, “Firm Win $1.7M in Fees in $6.9M Retirement Benefits Suit,” reports that attorneys from Nichols Kaster PLLP, Block & Leviton LLP and MKLLC Law were awarded $1.7 million in fees by a Massachusetts federal judge after securing a $6.9 million settlement with workers from MFS Investment Management who claimed the company mismanaged their retirement savings.  Senior U.S. District Judge Rya W. Zobel approved the lawyers’ fee ask, closing a 2017 suit that alleged MFS profited at the expense of its workers by putting the workers retirement savings into expensive, proprietary funds.

The fee award totals $1.71 million, plus another $173,978 to reimburse expenses.  The current and former workers were led by Melissa Velazquez and Frances Fuentes-Noriega, each of whom received an additional $10,000 in class representative service awards.  The employees told the court back in June that they had reached an agreement with Massachusetts Financial Services Co. to settle their Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims.  Velazquez and her fellow employees said MFS breached its fiduciary duties and engaged in prohibited transactions.

According to the June settlement proposal, the $6.9 million amount represents about 30% of the damages the workers could recover if they were to prove liability and maximum damages on all of their claims.  The result is "particularly impressive" in regard to both the dollar amount per class member (about $2,291) and the percentage of the plan's assets (about .72%) it represents, the workers said.