Cannon v. Ashburn Corp.
CCAF successfully objected to the proposed settlement for its severely imbalanced result and giving the attorneys a guaranteed payday that will exceed class recovery.
Anthem, Inc. Data Breach Litigation
CCAF asked the court to investigate overbilling that was not disclosed to the court or the class. Judge Koh agreed and appointed a special master to investigate overbilling, subsequently reducing the final fee award by $6.9 million.
CEI, John France, Daniel Frank, Jean-Claude Gruffat and Charles Haywood v. FCC
After nearly a year and a half without response from the agency, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (and now the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute) is representing individuals taking the Federal Communications Commission to court over the 2016 Charter/Brighthouse/Time Warner cable merger.
Ma v. Harmless Harvest, Inc.
The proposed settlement provided class members with worthless injunctive relief, simply codifying labeling changes that Harmless Harvest voluntarily made in 2015, but would have provided $575,000 to attorneys and named plaintiffs. The court agreed with CCAF that the settlement was not fair, reasonable, and adequate.
Knapp v. Art.com Inc.
Under the settlement, class members will receive $10 vouchers for use on Art.com's ecommerce sites. The settlement has hallmarks of the coupon-settlement abuse that Congress targeted with the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005.
Gordon v. Verizon Communications, Inc., et al.
As in the overwhelming majority of strike suits, the settlement in Gordon v. Verizon did not provide any monetary relief to shareholders. Instead, it provided immaterial supplemental disclosures and corporate governance change. Due to CCAF's objection, the court awarded a reduced amount of $1.5 million in fees and expenses.
Arkansas Teacher Retirement System v. State Street
A double billing error discovered by the Boston Globe and Ted Frank evolves into one of the most in-depth inquiries into securities suit billing. An appointed special master discovered undisclosed payment to attorneys who did no work in case, but plaintiffs' counsel tries to retain their $75 million fee. HLLI successfully argued for a reduced fee and defended the fee award on appeal as an amicus.
Edwards v. National Milk Producers Federation, et al.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California adopted some of our objections, reducing the plaintiffs' attorneys fee request by 25 percent, from more than $17 million to $13 million.
Allen v. Similasan Corp.
In a victory for CCAF, the new settlement provides a $700,000 fund, which will provide more than $500,000 to class members, as a result of the Center’s involvement in the litigation. The original settlement provided only attorneys’ fees and meaningless label changes to class members.
Rougvie v. Ascena Retail Group
On July 29, 2016 the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that the $14 million fee request by attorneys in a coupon settlement over Justice clothing store sales was excessive under federal law and that only $5.3 million could be currently justified. At the conclusion of the coupon redemption period, the objectors CCAF represents moved to disgorge pay-offs that had been made to self-interested so-called "professional objectors."
