Award Was Less Than Half Of $81 Million Request, Using Lodestar Billings Augmented By Positive 2.2 Multiplier.
On September 2, 2015, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California gave final approval to a class action settlement by high tech workers challenging on antitrust grounds a “no poaching” pact reached by Apple, Google, Adobe Systems, and Intel Corp. (Earlier, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Intuit settled out with the plaintiffs.) The September 2015 settlement was $415 million. District Judge Koh also awarded class counsel $40,043,932.50 in fees, less than half the requested $81 million. Although finding nothing wrong with the request (which was 19.5% of the total settlement amount), the district court believed that a case involving a large settlement fund was better served by using the lodestar method rather than “blind acceptance of percentages that seem largely untethered to the results achieved in this litigation.” District Judge Koh applied a positive 2.2 multiplier to the lodestar, as well as awarding about $1.2 million in costs. The district court also awarded an objector’s attorney a $120,000 service award even though $4.5 million had been requested. Earlier, one of the class counsel firm trimmed its bills by $2 million when a disagreement arose about its billing practices.
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