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Reuters
01-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Epic Games' Cravath team wins fees in Apple contempt ruling
May 1 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab) A federal judge's contempt ruling against Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab has created a major new legal headache for the iPhone maker, and also requires it to write a check to its adversary in the case: "Fortnite" maker Epic Games. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday found Apple willfully violated an injunction she issued in Epic's 2020 lawsuit that was meant to open up the company's App Store to greater competition. The decision, opens new tab immediately bars Apple from restricting App Store customers' use of third-party payment systems. The judge held Apple in civil contempt and referred the case to federal prosecutors to probe whether Apple was in criminal contempt of court. Apple said it disputed the ruling and will appeal. As a sanction, Gonzalez Rogers also said Apple must pay legal fees to Epic's legal team, led by Cravath, Swaine & Moore, for the many months the lawyers spent fighting Apple for information about its compliance with the earlier injunction. Epic's team at Cravath was led by partners Gary Bornstein, Yonatan Even, Lauren Moskowitz and Michael Zaken. Bornstein declined to discuss the size of the Epic's legal tab on a call with reporters. The fee sanction could be in the tens of millions of dollars, based on the number of lawyers working for Epic, and the all-out battle that was waged over trying to pry information from Apple. Some Cravath litigation partners, including Moskowitz, have billed this year at $2,360 an hour, according to a Reuters review of U.S. court filings. "Epic's obviously not out here for fees," Epic Games chief executive Tim Sweeney told reporters. "We're fighting for the freedom of ourselves and all developers to do business directly with our customers, freedom from Apple interference and Apple taxation." Apple is represented by a team from Weil Gotshal led by Mark Perry. Lawyers from Gibson Dunn also represented Apple, which has denied violating the court's injunction. The court's order faulted Apple's lawyers, without naming them, for not correcting what the judge called "obvious lies" in testimony by an Apple executive. Two of Apple's chief lawyers in the Epic case did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gonzalez Rogers' order also addressed a separate bid from Apple to recoup more than $73 million in legal fees from Epic for violating the App Store's developer agreement. The court's ruling suggested Apple will not recover that much but is due some fees from Epic. Epic's legal team predicted any award would concern only a "small amount." -- A founder of law firm Kramer Levin's Paris office has sued the firm, opens new tab in New York state court, accusing it of failing to make certain payments in breach of their partnership agreement. Antoine Paszkiewicz, who had worked at Kramer Levin since 1999, alleged he is owed compensation following the firm's move in late 2024 to end its agreements with Paris partners as part of a plan to merge with law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. Some of Kramer Levin's Paris team jumped to rival law firm Morgan Lewis. Paszkiewicz said he was excluded from those negotiations because he was over the firm's mandatory retirement age of 65. Kramer Levin, he alleged, then failed to pay him the full compensation he was due under their partnership terms. Kramer Levin in a statement said it appreciated "the contributions of our former partners in Paris. The orderly winddown of the Paris office has fully complied with our partnership agreement." A lawyer for Paszkiewicz did not immediately respond to requests for comment. --Law firms including Constantine Cannon and Shinder Cantor Lerner said they will ask a U.S. judge to award them up to $76 million in fees as part of a $228 million antitrust class action settlement involving California's Sutter Health. Employers and individuals who sued Sutter in 2012 filed the proposed settlement in the San Francisco, California federal court, seeking a judge's approval. Sutter, represented by Jones Day, denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. US lobbying firms see early revenue boost in Trump's second term Bitcoin miner accuses K&L Gates of botching bankruptcy claim, overbilling Former top Trump diplomat settles legal fee fight for $1.1 million
Reuters
17-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Bitcoin miner accuses K&L Gates of botching bankruptcy claim, overbilling
April 17 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab) A bitcoin mining company has sued K&L Gates and one of its bankruptcy partners, alleging that the law firm overcharged legal fees while failing to perform a simple bankruptcy task, leading to a $24 million lawsuit against the bitcoin miner. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. The lawsuit from Gryphon Digital Mining, filed Monday in Manhattan federal court, opens new tab, seeks an unspecified amount of damages from K&L Gates after the firm allegedly failed to file a claim on its behalf in the bankruptcy case of Core Scientific Inc. "Proofs of claim are routinely filed out of an abundance of caution simply to preserve a party's rights. It is Bankruptcy 101," the lawsuit said. Gryphon said it paid K&L Gates more than $2.7 million in legal fees and alleged that most of the fees were "unnecessary and are not supported by any proper accounting or billing records." The lawsuit named the firm and Robert Honeywell, a New York-based partner who specializes in bankruptcy litigation, as defendants. Honeywell and a spokesperson for the firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gryphon's lawyers at Miller Barondess did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gryphon retained K&L Gates in August 2021 as the company was planning to merge with Sphere 3d Corp, another bitcoin miner. Although the merger was called off months later, a contract the two companies had signed remained in effect. In September 2021, Core reached a $35 million deal with Gryphon to provide the infrastructure to host 71,000 of Gryphon's cryptocurrency mining machines. K&L Gates represented Gryphon in that deal as well. Core filed for bankruptcy in December 2022. Gryphon alleged in its lawsuit that K&L Gates never monitored the proceedings and missed an April 2023 deadline for filing a proof of claim. Gryphon later retained lawyers from Hogan Lovells. Sphere later sued Gryphon in Manhattan federal court for $24 million. Among other things, Sphere accused Gryphon of breaching its fiduciary duty by failing to file a claim in the Core bankruptcy. Gryphon and Sphere settled in March 2025. The company said it was "forced to forego millions of dollars in valuable counterclaims in exchange for resolving Sphere's $24 million breach of fiduciary duty claim that arose from K&L Gates' mistake." --Law firms that negotiated more than $60 million in antitrust settlements with aerospace giant RTX's Pratt & Whitney unit and other companies have asked a federal judge to award them $20.2 million in legal fees. In a court filing, opens new tab, Quinn Emanuel and DiCello Levitt said the fee request was fair and reasonable given the complexity of the case and the risks they took in pursuing it. RTX denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. The lead Quinn Emanuel partner on the lawsuit, Daniel Brockett, who heads the firm's financial institution litigation practice, normally charges $2,030 an hour, according to billing records submitted, opens new tab with the petition. Quinn Emanuel recently disclosed in an unrelated case that some of its top partners are billing $3,000 an hour. --Another group of law firms, including Cohen Milstein and Quinn Emanuel, asked a U.S. judge, opens new tab in Manhattan this week to award them $35.5 million in legal fees and expenses in an antitrust lawsuit against Wall Street banks. The request, stemming from $71 million in settlements, includes $23.4 million in expenses. The plaintiffs' lawyers called the requested amount "a small fraction of the huge amounts that class counsel invested in this case" over nine years. The suit alleged an illegal boycott of a specific type of emerging trading platform. U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken declined to allow the suit to proceed as a class action. An expert for the plaintiffs had estimated class-wide damages of $4.5 billion.
Reuters
27-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Latham, Northwestern seek fees from conservative group in bias case
March 27 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab) Northwestern University and its lawyers at Latham & Watkins have asked a judge to award them attorney fees after a conservative group dropped its lawsuit over Northwestern law school's hiring practices and refiled a new one minutes later. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. Northwestern said in a Tuesday court filing, opens new tab that the "procedural gymnastics" by Faculty, Alumni, & Students Opposed to Racial Preferences (FASORP) violated a federal rule against "such manipulative tactics." FASORP is represented by prominent conservative attorney Jonathan Mitchell and by America First Legal, which was founded by Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump. FASORP sued Northwestern in July, claiming its law school discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and in the selection of articles that appear in its flagship law review. FASORP dismissed, opens new tab its own lawsuit on January 31, and then refiled it minutes later, opens new tab on February 1, according to Northwestern. "FASORP's continued gamesmanship to pursue that effort should not continue unless and until it reimburses Defendants for their costs and fees -- which are but a fraction of the toll that this unwarranted litigation has imposed," Northwestern said. A spokesperson for Northwestern did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mitchell and FASORP's other lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests. The university's filing accused FASORP of trying to dodge a potentially adverse ruling on its bid to add a Title VII claim to its original lawsuit. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for February 5, before FASORP dismissed its original suit on January 31. FASORP's February 1 lawsuit includes a Title VII claim. Northwestern did not specify how much in fees it is seeking, but the school said it wants to be reimbursed for its work in litigating FASORP's bid to amend its complaint, and for its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was also pending. The Evanston, Illinois-based school accused FASORP of trying to "malign five Black professors at Northwestern as unworthy of their appointments to the law faculty," while also targeting certain faculty members and students. -- A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday sanctioned, opens new tab a Houston-based patent lawyer known for filing hundreds of lawsuits a year for his failure to follow court rules for out-of-state attorneys. William Ramey and two lawyers at his law firm, Ramey LLP, were ordered to pay $64,121 after U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Kang found that Ramey and his colleagues "repeatedly and knowingly" broke rules governing admissions for non-local lawyers. Kang, in a 44-page order, said Ramey and his firm have a "long history of repeated instances of rules violations and noncompliance." Kang said he has found at least 56 civil lawsuits where Ramey appeared as a lawyer on the case as an out-of-state attorney, but he filed a pro hac vice application in just 10 of those cases. "It is clear that the conduct at issue in this case is not due to excusable neglect or oversight," Kang said. Ramey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sanctions came in a patent infringement case Ramey's client, Koji IP, filed against the American branch of semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics. Koji voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Renesas less than a month after it was filed. Kang noted that Ramey and Koji filed — and voluntarily dismissed — two earlier lawsuits against Renesas. A spokesperson for Renesas declined to comment. -- Lawyers who secured more than $319 million in cash settlements for some 200,000 current and former students suing 17 major U.S. colleges over financial aid said they have invested nearly 128,000 hours into the antitrust litigation. Litigation continues against five schools. Attorneys from three firms — Gilbert Litigators & Counselors; Berger Montague and Freedman Normand Friedland — this week asked a U.S. judge, opens new tab in Chicago to approve an additional $11.75 million in fees for their work, which would push their total compensation so far above $106 million. -- Plaintiffs lawyers at The Rosen Law Firm and Glancy Prongay said they will ask a U.S. judge to award them up to $6.7 million in fees from a $20 million securities class action settlement with Live Nation. The entertainment giant agreed to settle a shareholder lawsuit accusing it of making misleading statements about industry competition and compliance with antitrust laws, artificially boosting its stock price. Live Nation denied any wrongdoing.
Reuters
20-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Purdue Pharma fees surpass $250 million for Davis Polk amid new bankruptcy plan
March 20 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab) Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy entered a new, possibly final phase this week when the drugmaker filed a new $7.4 billion plan to resolve thousands of lawsuits that alleged its OxyContin pain medication caused a widespread opioid addiction crisis in the United States. Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here. The complex bankruptcy has fueled several appeals, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that upended an earlier proposed $6 billion settlement that also would have shielded Purdue's wealthy Sackler family owners from civil liability. Along the way, Purdue's journey through the courts has generated sprawling fees for the army of attorneys and other professionals in the case, not least for the company's lead bankruptcy lawyers at Davis Polk & Wardwell. The New York law firm alone has received or requested more than a quarter of a billion dollars in fees since the bankruptcy began in 2019, a review of court filings shows. A U.S. bankruptcy judge in White Plains, New York has approved $246 million so far for the Davis Polk team, led by the firm's restructuring practice co-head Marshall Huebner. The firm has requested another $12.2 million for its work from September 2024 through January. The fees include a 20% discount on the lawyers' standard rates, according to recent court records. Huebner's current hourly rate is $2,645, Davis Polk said, opens new tab in a fee statement earlier this month. Associates at the firm reported hourly billing rates as high as $1,780, and several law clerks billed at $1,065. The statement, covering the month of January, included 54 lawyers and other hourly billers who spent a combined 1,775 hours on the case. Huebner and a spokesperson for Davis Polk had no immediate comment. A spokesperson for Purdue Pharma did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Similarly high billing rates have become the norm in the largest corporate bankruptcies . A recent Reuters review of court filings in other cases showed that several firms are now charging top hourly rates above $2,500. Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2019 to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from thousands of lawsuits alleging that OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that has caused more than half a million U.S. overdose deaths over two decades. The new formal bankruptcy plan Purdue Pharma filed Tuesday fleshes out the settlement with new details about how the money will be allocated to states, local governments and individuals harmed by the crisis. The company plans to begin soliciting votes and opt-in decisions from its creditors in May. After that, the plan would be submitted for final court approval. -- Alan Dershowitz is no longer on the hook to pay more than $12,220 as a sanction for his limited work on an election-related lawsuit on behalf of failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week held, opens new tab that "of counsel" lawyers can be sanctioned for signing court pleadings that are frivolous and lack factual basis. But the court said it would not apply that standard retroactively to Dershowitz, who had argued that he played only a nominal "of counsel" role in Lake's failed lawsuit challenging the use of electronic voting machines. -- U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan awarded $5.6 million, opens new tab in fees to attorneys at Labaton Keller Sucharow as part of a $19.5 million settlement in a securities class action against Barclays. The plaintiffs' attorneys said they spent more than 2,453 hours, opens new tab on the case. Barclays, represented by Sullivan & Cromwell, denied any wrongdoing. Barclays declined to comment, and a lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for one. -- Credit Suisse was on the losing side in a Texas appeal and is on the hook now to pay $500,000 in legal fees, opens new tab to the lawyers for a former wealth advisor at the firm who fought the banking giant over deferred compensation and other matters tied to his departure from the firm. The 5th Court of Appeals in a ruling said arbitrators did not exceed their power in awarding fees to Rogge Dunn Group. A spokesperson for Credit Suisse, now owned by UBS, declined to comment. A lawyer for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters
13-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Oracle lawyers' $58 million fee award on the line in Rimini Street appeal
March 13 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to opens new tab) After 15 years of litigation, a copyright law battle between software support company Rimini Street (RMNI.O), opens new tab and tech giant Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab is headed back to a U.S. appeals court, as Rimini fights to overturn $58 million in legal fees awarded to Oracle in the case in September. Rimini's lawyers at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in their opening brief, opens new tab this week asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject the fee award as unjustified. A federal judge in Nevada awarded the fees to Oracle last year after finding it had substantially prevailed on its copyright infringement claims against Las Vegas-based Rimini, which provided technical support for Oracle enterprise software clients starting in 2008. Oracle first sued Rimini in 2010, accusing it of illegally using its software and support materials for Rimini clients. Rimini was ordered to pay Oracle $90 million following a 2015 jury verdict, including $58.1 million in damages and $31.9 million in attorneys' fees and costs. Rimini in a separate 2014 lawsuit asked a judge to rule that it had stopped infringing Oracle's copyrights. The judge found in a bench ruling in 2023 that Oracle prevailed on some of its copyright allegations, though the 9th Circuit vacated most of that decision in December. Weil's Mark Perry, a lead appellate lawyer for Rimini, argued in the company's latest appeal that Oracle had failed "after more than a decade of scorched-earth litigation" to succeed on copyright claims for which it once sought more than $1.4 billion in damages. "It is exceptionally clear that Oracle is not the prevailing party and is not entitled to an award of the tens of millions of dollars it spent losing this case," Rimini told the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit. Rimini said the case produced "a mixed-result" that does not warrant awarding fees to either side. In the least, Rimini argued, the appeals court should find that Oracle's fee award was "dramatically excessive" and should be significantly reduced. Oracle and Rimini did not immediately respond to requests for comment. -- Eight U.S. states and the District of Columbia have asked a federal judge to award them legal fees for winning an order in federal court blocking Kroger's now-abandoned $25 billion deal for grocery rival Albertsons. U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson will weigh the fee request. The states did not ask for a specific amount, but the total could reach millions of dollars. -- President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Jonathan Gould of Jones Day, disclosed $1.6 million in salary on an ethics form submitted, opens new tab as part of his nomination. Gould said he provided legal services to banking and financial clients including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. In another filing, William Kimmitt, a nonequity partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis, disclosed $254,000 in salary on an ethics form submitted as part of his nomination to a post at the U.S. Treasury Department. Kimmitt said he provided legal services to BASF and Dell, among other clients. Trump has turned to some of the country's biggest law firms to fill key slots, including Jones Day; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and WilmerHale. Flush with cash, law firms eye uncertain economy Law firm Venable hit with $10 mln lawsuit by ex-client in FDA fight
