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Ninth Circuit Affirms Fee Award in NVIDIA Class Settlement

September 6, 2013 | Posted in : Fee Award, Fee Award Factors, Fee Issues on Appeal

A recent The Recorder story, “9th Circuit OKs NVIDIA Class Settlement,” reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit signed off on a first-of-its-kind class action settlement, including a $13 million fee award for class counsel led by Milberg, arising from defective NVIDIA computer chips.  The defects related to the solder on the chips, known as bumps.

“Although the award is large, it is proportional to the time spent by counsel under the lodestar method that the district court used,” the court stated in an unpublished per curiam opinion.  The amount also reflected“ the vigor and length of litigation, the complexity of issues, the risk that plaintiffs would have recovered less or nothing through further litigation, [and] the significant benefits to class members.”

NVIDIA Corp. announced problems with laptops and notebook computer chips in 2008.  The company, led by counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, worked out a deal through Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard to repair or replace all of the affected computers.  It was said to be the first time an upstream computer component maker had reached through retailers to settle consumer claims.