Legal Fee Tracker: Google, privacy lawyers clash over $217 million fee bid
By David Thomas
Sept 19 (Reuters) -After more than four years of litigation, one sticking point remains in a sprawling lawsuit over Google's alleged secret tracking of millions of Americans' internet browser use.
But it's a big one.
A federal judge in California is poised to rule on a petition by the plaintiffs' lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner, Morgan & Morgan and Susman Godfrey for Google to pay them $217 million in legal fees, as part of a settlement requiring the Alphabet unit to delete billions of records and update its privacy disclosures to users who set their browsers to "incognito" or "private."
Google has asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to award the firms no more than $40 million, arguing that they are seeking a windfall for a settlement that includes no money for consumers after they failed to get the lawsuit certified as a class action. The company denies violating privacy law.
After a hearing in the case last month, Google told Reuters the lawyers' fee bid was "just another attempt to generate news and line their own pockets in a case they settled for $0."
The firms counter that Google's promised privacy reforms are worth $3 billion to $6 billion to consumers. They told Rogers they invested $62.4 million in lawyer time in the case — 78,880 hours — and that their achievements warrant a fee award more than three times that amount.
Attorneys from Morgan & Morgan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Susman Godfrey partner Bill Carmody and Boies Schiller managing partner Matthew Schwartz declined to comment.
A Google spokesperson reiterated the company's prior statement criticizing the fee request. The company's lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Class action settlements don't always include a damages fund for plaintiffs. It is also not uncommon for judges to award fees in such cases, experts said.
"Courts have to come up with some assessment of the benefit created for the class, but in the absence of damages, it's mainly guesswork," University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard said in an email.
Rogers has not said when she will rule on the fee clash, which has been fully briefed and argued, and finalize the settlement. Plaintiffs who brought similar privacy claims against the internet search giant in California state court are also trying to intervene in the federal case. They are now appealing Rogers' denial of their intervention to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rogers offered some clues about her thinking on the fees at last month's hearing, saying the plaintiffs were not "entirely successful" given their failure to win damages, but calling the proposed settlement they achieved "not insignificant."
She questioned some of the plaintiffs' billing records, telling them that charging $667 per hour fees for document review seemed "excessive."
Arguing for the lawyers, Boies Schiller chairman David Boies emphasized the difficulty of the case and said Google was unfairly taking aim at some plaintiffs lawyers logging 12-hour days when corporate defense attorneys routinely do the same.
Boies Schiller's share of the requested Google award is roughly $73 million, according to a Reuters analysis of the fee request. It would add to a lucrative year in fees for the New York firm, which was part of the team awarded a $667 million legal-fee award stemming from a $2.67 billion civil antitrust settlement with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
- In other legal fee news, involving a case that is also before Rogers, the judge on Wednesday awarded a reduced fee to plaintiffs lawyers who reached a $490 million settlement with Apple earlier this year over allegations that CEO Tim Cook defrauded shareholders by concealing falling demand for iPhones in China.
Rogers said the original fee request of $122.5 million sought by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Labaton Keller Sucharow relied on a multiplier to their standard rates that was "extraordinarily high." She reduced the fee award to $107.8 million, or 22% of the settlement.
- Office Depot has been awarded $927,000 in legal fees in a failed U.S. copyright lawsuit against it after a judge questioned its lawyers' billing records and rejected its fee bid for more than $2 million.
- A federal judge in New York last week awarded $102 million to Quinn Emanuel and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll for their work on a $580 million settlement for investors who accused major banks of conspiring to curb competition in the stock lending market.
(Legal Fee Tracker is a weekly feature exploring attorney compensation awards and disputes in class actions, bankruptcies and other matters. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com.)
Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella
Read More:
Legal Fee Tracker: Clearview AI's choose-your-own-adventure privacy settlement
Legal Fee Tracker: Giuliani's bill for Trump work could go to Georgia poll workers
Legal Fee Tracker: Sanctions pile up for Texas patent lawyer
Reporting by David Thomas
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
