A recent Law 360 story by Nadia Dreid, “Cotchett Pitre Gets $8.3M in Fees in Resistor Antitrust Fight,” reports that Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP will walk away with $8.3 million for its role in securing a $33.4 million deal for indirect buyers who say that Panasonic Corp. and other electronics companies overcharged them for resistors. A California federal judge gave the settlement and accompanying attorney fee request his final blessing, finding that both were "fair and reasonable" and that the firm asked for less than it could have.
"Counsel for [indirect purchaser plaintiffs'] requested fee award represents less than 73% of their reasonable lodestar, a negative multiplier. This further supports the reasonableness of class counsel for [indirect purchaser plaintiffs'] attorney fee request," U.S. District Judge James Donato said in his ruling. The firm requested — and will be pocketing — about 25% of the settlement as attorney fees, as well as an additional $1.4 million as reimbursement for expenses, according to the court's order.
Class counsel ended up going with the percentage method to calculate its fees. In cases where classes opt for the percentage method, 25% is normally used as a benchmark in California, with a possibility for attorneys to receive up to 30% of the settlement fund, depending on the circumstances. But Cotchett Pitre won't get all those funds yet. A quarter of the $8.3 million in attorney fees will be held back until the firm has finished up its post-distribution accounting, Judge Donato said in his order.
The fee approval was smooth sailing for the indirect purchaser attorneys compared to the ordeal faced by their colleagues representing direct purchasers of the resistors. Judge Donato ripped into their $10 million fee bid for being "insufficient" in a September order, scolding Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC for failing to provide enough detail and reasoning in their fee request in what he called a "disservice to the class and the court." The judge did eventually greenlight the $10 million in attorney fees at a second hearing, after receiving billing charts that assured him everything was on the up-and-up.