Judge Approves Record $688M Attorney Fees in Enron Securities Case
Securities class action law firm Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins is among the plaintiffs law firms awarded a record $688 million in fees in Enron shareholder litigation.
U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon approved the award, the largest ever in a securities fraud case, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.). Coughlin Stoia stands to receive as much as $400 million of the amount, ABAJournal.com reported in a previous post quoting the Wall Street Journal Law Blog. Former Coughlin Stoia lawyer William Lerach, now in administrative confinement in a California prison, could get as much as $50 million of the amount, according to the prior report.
The law firm represented the University of California Regents’ Retirement Fund and had negotiated a fee agreement for plaintiffs lawyers that started at 8 percent and climbed to 10 percent for any money recovered above $2 billion, the Daily Journal story says. The litigation settled for $7.2 billion, bringing the attorney fees to 9.52 percent of the recovery plus interest. The settling defendants included bankers, accountants and lawyers the Wall Street Journal reports.
“This litigation has been ongoing since the fall of 2001, over six years, and the record attests to a long, difficult fight that justifies honoring the fee agreement’s 9.52 percent,” Harmon wrote.
Her ruling called Coughlin Stoia “a lion” of the securities bar and praised the firm’s 12 lawyers who worked on the case, the National Law Journal (sub. req.) reports.
Meanwhile, in another Enron case, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived fraud lawsuits filed in Texas state court against the estate of the late Enron founder Ken Lay, other company officials and several financial institutions. The opinion (PDF) is Newby v. Enron Corp. The Houston law firm Fleming & Associates filed the suits.
