A recent Reuters story by Mike Scarcella, “IMF Says It’s Immune From Legal Fee Fight -- Again,” reports that a lawyer for the International Monetary Fund told a federal appeals court that the organization is shielded from a case that seeks to have a judge hear a dispute over millions of dollars in legal fees.  Seyfarth Shaw's James Newland Jr, arguing for the IMF before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, asserted that the IMF has judicial immunity from the litigation and that the organization never "expressly waived" such immunity in a legal-services contract with one of its outside lawyers.  A lower court judge in March dismissed the lawsuit.

The plaintiff, Leonard A. Sacks & Associates, in 2017 filed an arbitration action against the IMF that questioned how much the organization had paid him to resolve a construction-related dispute with contractors who'd been hired for work on the IMF's office in Washington, D.C. Leonard Sacks said in court filings his work saved the IMF about $45 million.  Sacks contested in court an arbitrator's decision to award him about $39,000 in fees beyond the $2.36 million he had received in 2016.

Newland did not immediately return a message seeking comment.  A lawyer for Sacks, Donald Spence Jr of Spence & Becker, and Sacks did not immediately return messages seeking comment.  Sacks had a 20-year professional services relationship with the IMF.  He said in court filings that the IMF, without his input, had determined his fee for the legal services on the construction project would be $4.15 million.  Sacks said he asked for an accounting on the fees but did not receive one.  The IMF ended its contract with him in 2017, court filings show.

Spence, arguing for Sacks at the D.C. Circuit, said the courts should have a role in reviewing the arbitrator's fee award.  The contract at issue, Spence argued, referenced D.C. law and the American Arbitration Association rules, which permit lawsuits seeking to modify or vacate an award.  Sacks had a contractual right to a court's review, Spence told D.C. Circuit Judges Cornelia Pillard, Laurence Silberman and Karen Henderson.  "Without a remedy, the contract is essentially illusory," Spence wrote in a brief.