‘Gobsmacking’ Fee Request: Haynes also challenges class counsel’s request of $284.5 million, 9.5 percent of the settlement’s value, in attorneys’ fees. He called the request ‘‘gobsmacking,’’ saying it will further dilute class recovery and ‘‘is based on the brazen overbilling of contract attorneys to the tune of nearly $100 million.’’
Law360 cited CCAF attorney Anna St. John and Director of Litigation Ted Frank after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear CEI's case, Frank v. Gaos. CEI hopes the court rules in our favor and creates a standard that forbids attorneys from misusing class action settlements to selfishly put themselves and third parties ahead of their clients. Justices are set for the first time to consider the cy pres remedy, which distributes awards in class actions to parties…
Critics of these settlements described them as a form of suspect collusion between plaintiffs' lawyers and corporate defendants, since both benefit by arranging a settlement. Leading the challenge to these deals is Ted Frank, a Washington lawyer who regularly objects to class-action settlements.
But Theodore Frank and Melissa Ann Holyoak objected to what is called a “cy pres” agreement and said Monday they were gratified the court had taken the case. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court’s review will result in a standard forbidding attorneys from misusing class-action settlements to selfishly put themselves and third parties ahead of their clients,” said Frank
In objecting to the Google settlement, they said research centers based at Harvard and Stanford universities, among those slated for awards, had connections to both sides in the case: Google already supported the centers, and some plaintiffs’ attorneys had attended the schools.
The deal’s opponents were led by Ted Frank, director of litigation for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank. They said the deal violated procedural rules in U.S. law requiring settlements to be fair, reasonable and adequate.
“I do believe that the Department of Justice’s involvement and the interest from state attorneys general was helpful in getting the judge’s attention and making sure that this settlement received the scrutiny it deserved,” Schulman said.
Bloomberg Law discusses our ninth-circuit appeal in the lithium ion antitrust litigation: A possible vehicle for federal courts to revisit the inconsistent treatment comes in an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by a class action advocacy group. The Center for Class Action Fairness is seeking to undo an October 2017 settlement in In Re: Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation, a multi-district lawsuit on a price-fixing…
Communications Daily profiles CEI's (and now HamLinc's) petition representing individuals taking the Federal Communications Commission to court over the 2016 Charter/Brighthouse/Time Warner cable merger. FCC inaction on the Competitive Enterprise Institute June 2016 petition for administrative reconsideration (see 1606100043) falls “far short” of an egregious-level delay that would justify a writ of mandamus, the agency said Friday in a docket 17-1261opposition filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It…
Because “[o]bjectors do not contest the value of the settlement” or plead that they suffered any out-of-pocket injury from Google’s conduct, the only question was whether it was “feasible” to distribute $8.5 million to a class with 129 million estimated members who performed searches through Google.
