The amount is equivalent to about US$3,100 per hour for 65 lawyers and staff
Lawyers who secured a US$490 million securities class action settlement with Apple are seeking US$122.5 million in legal fees, citing the significant risks involved in the case, Reuters reported.
The law firms Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Labaton Keller Sucharow have requested this amount, equivalent to approximately $3,100 per hour for the 65 lawyers and staff who dedicated 39,500 hours to the case.
The request was submitted to a federal judge in Oakland, California, where the firms argued that their higher fee was justified due to the challenge of litigating against one of the world's largest and most powerful companies. Multiplying the hours worked by the professionals' standard hourly rates would typically result in an award of about US$27.8 million. However, the firms believe the larger fee is warranted under the circumstances.
The settlement addresses allegations that Apple CEO Tim Cook misled shareholders by hiding declining demand for iPhones in China. In 2019, Apple reduced its quarterly revenue forecast by as much as US$9 billion, marking the first time the company had cut its forecast since the iPhone's launch. Apple denied the claims but agreed to the settlement.
The US$122.5 million fee request aligns with the 25 percent benchmark for attorney fee awards in class action settlements, a standard adopted by federal courts in California and the 9th Circuit. However, courts have occasionally reduced this percentage in large settlements. For example, in 2015, a federal judge in San Jose reduced an attorney fee request from 19.54 percent to around 10 percent in a US$415 million settlement involving Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley companies accused of salary-fixing.
University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard, an expert in securities class actions, noted that the 25 percent benchmark can be excessive in certain cases. He referenced a 2023 study he co-authored, which estimated that Robbins Geller earned over US$1 billion in fees from securities class actions from 2005 to 2018.
Robbins Geller and Labaton highlighted that Apple's US$490 million all-cash settlement is the third-largest in the Northern District of California and one of the 40 largest securities class action settlements ever.
According to Reuters, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is currently considering the fee request and the final approval of the settlement. Judge Rogers has previous experience with major litigation against Apple, having approved a US$26 million fee award in a US$100 million antitrust class action related to the App Store in 2022. She is also reviewing a US$217 million fee request from Boies Schiller Flexner, Morgan & Morgan, and Susman Godfrey following a non-monetary settlement with Google in a consumer privacy case.
