Fee Dispute Hotline
(312) 907-7275

Assisting with High-Stakes Attorney Fee Disputes

The NALFA

News Blog

Class Counsel Seek Their $69M Share in Capacitor MDL

September 17, 2020 | Posted in : Billing Record / Entries, Expenses / Costs, Fee Allocation / Fee Apportionment, Fee Expert / Member, Fee Request, Practice Area: Class Action / Mass Tort / MDL

A recent Law 360 story by Julia Arciga, “Class Attys Seek $69M Slice of Capacitor MDL Deals,” reports that counsel for a group of capacitor buyers who secured settlements worth over $232 million in sweeping multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing by manufacturers asked a California federal court to grant them over $78 million in attorneys fees and costs.  Attorneys from Joseph Saveri Law Firm Inc. asked the Northern District of California to greenlight an award of roughly $69.6 million in attorneys fees and $9.1 million in costs.

The attorneys are seeking the award after they were able to land settlements totaling $232,050,000 for buyers that purchased capacitors directly from AVX Corp., ELNA Co., Holy Stone Enterprise Co. Ltd., KEMET Corp., Panasonic Corp., Shinyei Technology Co., Shizuki Electric Co. and Taitsu Corp.  The lawyers said a special fee master thoroughly audited the materials they submitted to the court to support their proposed award in July and found the class counsel's requested fees and cost reimbursements were reasonable.

More specifically, the filing claimed the special fee master's report, submitted to the court earlier this month, said the lawyers' requested fees were backed up by detailed time entries.  The special fee master also found the proposed cost reimbursement was actually less than the total amount of expenses the attorneys incurred, according to the buyers' attorneys.  The attorneys also noted that their clients, the direct capacitor buyers, didn't object to the special fee master's conclusions.