A recent Law 360 story by Jack Karp, “Boies Schiller, Hausfeld Score $627M in Fees in BCBS MDL” reports that an Alabama federal judge awarded $626.6 million in attorney fees and another $40.9 million in costs to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Hausfeld LLP and other lawyers who scored a $2.67 billion class award for subscribers in multidistrict litigation against Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers. 

The fees represent 23.47% of the $2.67 billion settlement fund, which U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor said falls within the lower half of the Eleventh Circuit's "benchmark range" of 20% to 30%.  He also gave final approval to the settlement itself.

The fees amount is "fair and reasonable" given the nature of the settlement, according to the judge, who noted that "the settlement also provides historic, transformative, pro-competitive injunctive and equitable relief that will greatly benefit the members of the subscribers class."

The nation's BCBS insurers agreed in 2020 to the $2.67 billion class settlement fund and sweeping anticompetitive practice reforms to settle the long-running multidistrict suit based in Alabama federal court that was filed by dozens of subscriber groups. 

The multidistrict litigation, opened in January 2013, accused dozens of mostly nonprofit BCBS-affiliated insurers of using trademarking and other practices, including limits on non-Blue revenues to suppress competition. The MDL eventually grew to include more than 40 plaintiffs' groups nationwide.