A recent Law 360 story by Rose Krebs, “3 Firms Get $16.8M for $60M Tesla-SolarCity Suit Deal,” reports that a Delaware vice chancellor approved Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP's $16.8 million award for brokering a $60 million settlement with six Tesla Motors Inc. directors in a stockholder challenge of Tesla's $2.6 billion SolarCity merger.

During a hearing held via telephone, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III approved the $60 million deal with the settling directors, while claims against company founder Elon Musk are still on track for trial next year.  The firms will receive $15 million for attorney fees and another roughly $1.8 million for expenses, a total equal to about 28% of the settlement amount.  The vice chancellor called the award fair and reasonable, given the roughly 27,000 hours the firms have lodged working the case.

"The get here is significant," Vice Chancellor Slights said, adding that "success was by no means secured" if the investor claims against the settling directors had proceeded to trial.  Attorney Randall J. Baron of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, co-lead counsel for the investors, told the court that no objections to the settlement or attorney award being sought had been filed.

In a court filing, the firms asserted that the $16.8 million sought was "fair and reasonable" given the settlement "resulted from four years of vigorous litigation efforts including: obtaining and reviewing more than three million pages of documents from Tesla, Tesla's directors and 14 nonparties; serving nearly 100 interrogatories on Tesla, Musk and the settling defendants; and deposing 18 fact and four expert witnesses."