A recent Law 360 by Sydney Price, “Attys Get $37M For Landing Forex Rigging Deals,” reports that a New York federal judge awarded $36.8 million in attorney fees to counsel for investors who accused a group of banks of rigging foreign exchange markets, about $10.4 million less than the lawyers wanted, for securing nearly $186 million in settlements for their clients.  U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said in a letter that class counsel sought legal fees of $47.2 million, which represents 25.4% of the settlement fund, and litigation expenses of $845,471.57.  Judge Kaplan decided to apply a lodestar method to evaluate the payout, which removed some billable hours counsel included in its request.

Counsel submitted a proposed lodestar of $29.9 million for over 53,000 hours worked.  This calculation included over 3,000 hours by four non-lawyer analysts, including a derivatives expert.  Judge Kaplan said counsel did not provide enough data on the rates charged by these analysts to include them in his final calculation. The litigation expenses of $845,471.57 were granted without objections.

"After approximately six years of hard-fought litigation, counsel obtained eight class action settlements and twelve settling defendants, creating a common fund of $185,875,000," Judge Kaplan said.  "This was a good result for the class and counsel deserve to be compensated adequately."  The attorneys previously noted that no other firms attempted to represent the class in the case, contending that was "likely because of the ... high risks" the investors knew they would face in the matter.

The suit accused the banks of coordinating a "horizontal conspiracy to manipulate prices in favor of the defendants' derivatives trading positions" and cites investigations by Australia's securities regulator, which showed certain banks had worked together to fix derivative contract prices.

The parties reached a final settlement in the case last May. Credit Suisse had agreed to pay $8.88 million, and a group of five other banks, comprising BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS, had agreed to pay a total of $40 million to end the claims they face in the matter.

The settlement sum also includes $137 million in settlements reached earlier in the matter, including December 2021 agreements that Australia and New Zealand Banking and Commonwealth Bank of Australia would each pay $35 million, National Australia Bank would pay $27 million and Morgan Stanley would pay $7 million.  Westpac Banking Corp. agreed to pay $25 million in March 2021, and JPMorgan struck a $7 million settlement deal in November 2018.

A recent Law 360 by Irene Spezzamonte, “Workers for Virgin, Alaska Seek $10M Fees in $31M Wage Suit,” reports that a group of flight attendants asked a California federal court to grant their attorneys $10 million in fees after they were able to reach a $31 million deal to solve their suit claiming Virgin America and Alaska Airlines cheated them out of pay.  The workers asked the court to sign off on the fees, as well as on more than $600,000 in expenses. 

The workers added that those amounts are reasonable after their attorneys put in about 7,300 hours of work during the eight-year litigation on claims that Virgin America Inc. and Alaska Airlines Inc. violated California labor laws.  "Plaintiffs and class counsel have litigated this matter for nearly eight years against unyielding defendants vigorously represented by skilled counsel," the workers said.  "Every single step of this litigation was hard-fought and fraught with risk."

In January, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar entered a judgment order against the airlines, which are both a part of Alaska Air Group, directing them to shell out the settlement aimed at resolving claims they failed to pay overtime, meal and rest periods and did not provide workers with accurate wage statements.  The settlement also ended claims under California's Private Attorneys General Act.

In that order, Judge Tigar also asked the parties to separately file a motion for the attorney fees, service awards for the three named plaintiffs and to address the plan of allocation, triggering the filing.  The flight attendants said that the $10 million in attorney fees, which the airlines agreed to pay, are reasonable given the amount of time and work their counsel put into the litigation.  Of that amount, about $6 million will come directly from the airlines while the remaining $4 million will come from the $31 million common fund, the workers said.

The fees represent overall 33% of the settlement, but the $6 million the airlines will pitch in will be credited against the $31 million total, resulting in a 13% total of the deal, the workers added.  The $600,000 in expenses will also come from two sources: $40,000 from the airlines in the form of a reimbursement for the plaintiffs' taxable costs and the remainder from the common fund.

The workers also seek $25,000 to each of the three named plaintiffs, saying that "over the past eight years, plaintiffs have provided invaluable assistance and guidance to class counsel with respect to understanding the airline industry" and the airlines' practices and policies.  Additionally, each service award of $25,000 represents less than .001% of the final common fund judgment, the workers said.

A recent Law 360 by Abby Wargo, “United Flight Attendants’ Attys Seek $18.1M Cut of $54M Deal,” reports that counsel for a class of United Airlines flight attendants who accused the airline of issuing deficient wage statements asked a California federal judge to approve an $18.1 million fee award after an "intense battle" that led to a $54 million settlement.  Kirk D. Hanson and Jeffrey C. Jackson of Jackson Hanson LLP, who are representing the flight attendants, called the eight-year wage suit "an intense battle from beginning to end," according to their motion for attorney fees, and they should be properly compensated considering the difficulty of achieving success.  They also requested an additional $90,000 in expenses.

A federal judge in February had preliminarily approved the $53.5 million settlement, which the motion says has since accrued interest and now totals $54.4 million, but asked the flight attendants' attorneys to justify their request for a third of the settlement, as it exceeds the state benchmark.  The final approval hearing will be in June.

The attorneys said the settlement, which will provide each class member with an average of $3,230 even after attorney fees and costs are deducted, is an exceptional outcome for the plaintiffs, as it exceeds 80% of the highest recovery they could have received through trial.  The typical individual recovery range in a wage and hour class action is 10% to 27%, they said.  Additionally, they said other state and federal courts routinely approve attorney fees equaling one-third of settlement funds.

Also proper are the $20,000 service awards for each named plaintiff, Felicia Vidrio and Paul Bradley, the attorneys said, because they took on significant risks in representing the class and would have been on the hook for attorney fees had they lost.  Their time and effort in assisting their attorneys should be recognized, according to the motion.

Even more important than the monetary awards, the attorneys said, is that United changed the format of its wage statements for California-based flight attendants to comply with state statute.  The wage statements now show all hours worked during a pay period and the hourly pay rate, the motion says.  "This is arguably the most important win in this case because it will continue on indefinitely and allow the flight attendants to quickly and easily verify the correct payment of their wages," the attorneys said in the motion.

These outcomes would never have been possible if the plaintiffs and their attorneys had given up, the motion says, because "at every turn in this litigation United mounted a vigorous defense."  The workers and their attorneys said that by reversing summary judgment and reviving their case after trips to both the Ninth Circuit and California Supreme Court, they set precedent clarifying how state labor law applies to interstate transportation workers.

Under the terms of the settlement, the non-reversionary $54 million fund includes attorney fees, $20,000 service awards for both class representatives, and a Private Attorneys General Act settlement of $300,000, with about $35 million going to the settlement class on a pro rata basis.  Members of the class are defined as all flight attendants employed by United and based at a California airport between August 2014 and March 31, 2023. Any remaining funds will be given to a cy pres recipient, Legal Aid at Work, according to the deal.

A recent Law 360 by Hayley Fowler, “Milberg Nets $85K in Fees on NC Data Breach Deal with CPAs,” reports that a North Carolina judge awarded about $85,000 in attorney fees — a reduced amount — to Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman PLLC after the firm secured a class action settlement with an accounting office over a data breach that affected nearly 16,000 clients.  Chief Judge Louis A. Bledsoe III of the North Carolina Business Court said in an order that the hourly rates sought by three Milberg partners who worked on the case were slightly higher than average for the state.  But he said their ability to secure a speedy settlement against the accounting office of Gerald O. Dry PA had "required high legal skill" meriting an award of attorney fees.

"This case revolves around rapidly evolving legal questions of digital security, data breaches and digital privacy, which are at the cutting edge of the interplay between new technology and the law," Judge Bledsoe wrote.  "Pursuing these actions is therefore complicated, difficult and fraught with risk, for both clients and attorneys, and such was the case here."  Taking into account comparable hourly rates in similar complex business disputes, the judge awarded the firm roughly $85,000 in fees and costs — down from the $110,000 Milberg had sought.

The fee award comes on the heels of Judge Bledsoe's decision to grant final approval of a class action settlement Milberg secured on behalf of roughly 15,855 clients of Gerald O. Dry PA whose personal information was allegedly compromised in a data breach announced last year.  Gerald O. Dry PA reached an agreement to settle the proposed class action almost immediately, court documents show, and the parties received early approval in November.

Under the terms of the agreement, Gerald O. Dry PA will reimburse out-of-pocket expenses related to the data breach of up to $400 per class member, lost time of up to five hours at $20 per hour, and monetary losses of up to $5,000.  Those benefits are capped at $200,000 total.  The accounting firm also agreed to give class members two years of identity theft protection services with a potential retail value of more than $3.4 million, as well as implement a host of new cybersecurity protections, including a new firewall, antivirus software and third-party verification, among others.

Milberg had based its $110,000 fee request, which it said represented about 26% of the total deal, on a total settlement value of $419,189.  The firm highlighted "substantial hurdles" and the complex nature of cybersecurity law it faced in pursuing the case, saying that it was never guaranteed the class would be certified and that the requested rates were in line with similar data breach class action settlements in other states.

But Judge Bledsoe said Friday he would not consider rates charged in other jurisdictions when the "relevant locality is North Carolina."  "The North Carolina state courts have generally not approved hourly rates as high as those sought" by the three Milberg partners, the judge said, though he conceded that "hourly rates have risen since many of the North Carolina state cases that speak to reasonable rates were decided."

Taking all of that into account, Judge Bledsoe reduced the hourly rate of lead counsel David Lietz to $700, down from his requested rates of $919 per hour for work performed in 2022 and $979 per hour for work performed this year.  Milberg partners Scott Harris and Gary Klinger were, by comparison, awarded $575 an hour. Harris had initially sought $764 per hour for last year's work and $829 per hour for this year's work. Klinger had requested an hourly rate of $850.

In addition to the partner-level fees, Judge Bledsoe signed off on the requested hourly rates for an associate and four paralegals, finding them to be more in line with recent state business court fee decisions in comparable suits.  The resulting fee award of $85,252 takes into account those adjusted rates as well as roughly $1,000 in expenses and costs.

A recent Law 360 by Jeff Montgomery, “Chancery Oks $1B Dell Class Suit Deal; $285M Fee Pending,” reports that a record $1 billion settlement of a stockholder class suit that challenged a $23.9 billion Dell Technologies Inc. stock swap in 2018 won Delaware Court of Chancery approval, while a proposed $285 million class attorney fee got sidelined for further consideration.  Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster described the deal — announced in November and the largest on record for the court — as the result of "a huge effort" on the part of class attorneys who battled through nearly 4½ years of litigation and racked up more than 53,000 attorney hours to reach the hearing.

Waiting at the hearing, however, were arguments by a large shareholder and a friend-of-the-court brief filed by law professors urging the court under some proposals to slash the fee by $100 million or more.  Pentwater Capital Management LP, which holds 1.6% of the shares at issue, argued that the 28.5% fee award would be excessive and urged the court to adopt a sliding, or diminishing, rate for mega-settlements.  A group of law professors also backed a declining scale, saying a $150 million fee would be defensible while keeping $135 million for stockholders.  "I do think the objectors have raised important points that I'm going to think about," the vice chancellor said after a 2½-hour hearing.

The class suit accused Dell and controlling investors Silver Lake Group and its affiliates of shortchanging regular shareholders by some $10.7 billion in a deal that converted Class V stock — created to finance much of Dell's $67 billion acquisition of EMC Technologies in 2016 — to common shares.

When the challenged conversion closed on December 28, 2018, VMware stock closed at $158.38 per share, and DVMT, or Class V, stockholders received just $104.27 per share because Dell's Class C stock had been overvalued.  "The simple fact is, defendants would not settle for a billion dollars unless there was a real, credible risk of much higher damages at trial," said David Cooper of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, counsel to the class, while explaining the decision to settle rather than pursue a much larger share of the stockholders' short-changing.

"There were an enormous number of obstacles, and this was very far from a typical case," Cooper said.  "In determining whether $1 billion is fair value for the class, whether it reflects positively on the performance of counsel, it simply did not make sense to look at $10.7 billion while ignoring risk" that there would be nothing recovered, as happens in many deal challenges.

Stephen B. Brauerman of Bayard PA, counsel to Pentwater, said it would be "credibility killing" to call the settlement unimpressive, but told the court there are concerns that the deal did not fully compensate the stockholder class for the potential $10.7 billion in damages.  "All were requesting the court to consider in its exercise of discretion" the potential for "adversely impacting the class, impacting substantially their recovery," Brauerman said.

Ned Weinberger of Labaton Sucharow LLP, also counsel to the class, told the vice chancellor that stockholder attorneys logged more than 53,000 hours on the case, with nearly $4.3 million in expenses, with the fee and expense award reflecting an implied hourly rate of about $5,268 per hour.  If the court is entertaining a size adjustment, Weinberger said, "we have already done it for you.  All of the precedents support a fee award on the eve of trial of 30% or more.  We sought only 28.5%," or a 5% reduction.

Anthony A. Rickey of Margrave Law LLC, counsel to the law professor group, advocated in part bringing Chancery Court litigation fees more in line with relatively lower payouts for large cases in U.S. District Court securities actions.  Rickey said a 15% fee would be more appropriate, providing a still large $150 million fee while earmarking another $135 million for shareholders.  "There is a considerable amount of decreased risk after motions to dismiss," Rickey said, "even in Chancery practice."

Vice Chancellor Laster said federal securities cases seldom go to trial and often settle after motions to dismiss.  "Why isn't that a fair distinction?" the vide chancellor said.  "It makes sense" in federal court, when there is similar work in each case "and people are benefiting from the size of the issuer rather than actual value added" in litigation.  In contrast, the vice chancellor said, the Dell counsel "had to litigate against the army of the excellent until they got to the verge of trial, where they had to settle."

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