Law.com reporter Amanda Bronstad covers HLLI’s objection to the Equifax settlement, quoting HLLI director and objector Theodore H. Frank, who compared the fee request in the case to the Anthem settlement, which HLLI successfully objected to in 2018:
Frank called the $380.5 million figure [for the settlement fund] a “completely fictional cash fund,” and the lodestar inflated given the lawyers “didn’t do any actual litigating in this case.” As a result, he said, the fees should be 10% of $162 million, the real value of the settlement.
The fee request is the highest of any data breach settlement, with fee awards approved in similar cases against Anthem and Yahoo totaling $31 million and $30 million, respectively.
In those data breach cases, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California questioned the amount of billing and the number of law firms involved. Those same problems exist in the Equifax settlement, Frank said.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of back scratching going on here, Frank said. “It’s the same thing that happened in Anthem.”