A recent Law 360 story by John Petrick, “UBS Balks at Whistleblower Case’s $3.2M in Attys’ Fees,” reports that UBS Securities asked a New York federal judge to reject a “jaw-dropping” and “excessive” $3.2 million in attorneys' fees requested by a former analyst who won a $1 million verdict in his whistleblower trial under representation by Herbst Law PLLC and Broach & Stulberg LLP.  Attorneys for the bank argue that while the Sarbanes-Oxley Act allows for a winning party to recoup “reasonable” fees, this request is overstuffed with billable hours spent on claims that were lost at former analyst Trevor Murray's trial, duplication of work and extra time needed to make up for the attorneys’ own mistakes.

“The court should significantly reduce the amount of fees and costs that Murray’s counsel requests in order to prevent Murray’s counsel from reaping a windfall from their own limited success and inefficient, excessive work,” attorneys for UBS said in the motion.  Murray won only a “fraction” of what he sought at trial and his attorneys went after unreachable claims that a reasonable attorney would never have pursued, which prolonged the case needlessly, UBS attorneys said in the motion.

Murray won a nearly seven-year fight with the bank after he alleged he was fired in 2012 for complaining his superiors were pressuring him to falsely report better market conditions to boost UBS’ revenue numbers and impress investors.  The former analyst filed the lawsuit in February 2014, claiming UBS pressured him to skew his research to support the bank’s commercial mortgage-backed securities trading and loan origination activities, and to report better conditions in the market because that line of securities was a significant revenue source.

Murray allegedly told the bank’s head CMBS trader he was concerned certain CMBS bonds were overvalued, according to the suit.  But Murray was told not to publish anything negative about the bonds because they had been purchased by the UBS trading desk, he claimed.  He was fired shortly thereafter, just a month after receiving what he said was an excellent performance review.  UBS argued Murray was laid off as part of a mass downsizing sparked by the global financial downturn in 2011.

A jury in Manhattan awarded Murray nearly $1 million following a three-week trial, deciding he was fired for refusing to skew his research to impress investors, according to filings in the case.  The jury disagreed, however, on how long Murray would have remained at the firm, and awarded him much less than the amount of damages he was seeking.

Petitions filed last month asked for $638,950 to cover Herbst's attorneys’ fees and another $1,160.55 plus interest in costs, and $2.6 million to cover Broach & Stulberg's work in the case.  While Broach & Stulberg started out as lone counsel during several rounds of pretrial motions, Herbst “parachuted” into the case just a month before trial, applying to become lead counsel because it said it had more trial experience, according to the motion.

UBS attorneys maintained in their opposition motion that though a judge said Herbst could only assist in the case and not take over as lead counsel, for all intents and purposes, Herbst performed as if its attorneys were in fact lead counsel for the remainder of the case.

Herbst told Law360 his billable hours were reasonable and that he expects the court to think so, too.  "All of our firm’s time was spent on the Sarbanes-Oxley claim on which Mr. Murray prevailed and obtained what the jury decided was the full measure of his economic loss, special damages and compensatory damages," he said.  "Accordingly, based on UBS’s opposition, which does not attack our hourly rates and only presents picayune opposition to the hours we expended, our firm should hopefully receive a full lodestar recovery."

The case is Trevor Murray v. UBS Securities LLC et al, case number 1:14-cv-00927, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.