Aug 28 (Reuters) - Law firm Orrick, Herrington &

Sutcliffe and a plaintiffs lawyer have denied violating court

orders in a U.S. legal proceeding over the 2023 breach of

Progress Software's ( PRGS ) MOVEit program that affected hundreds of

organizations worldwide.

In a court filing on Tuesday, plaintiffs attorney William

Federman said he and Orrick had authority to negotiate a

$900,000 settlement in Oklahoma state court that was outside the

scope of a related proceeding in federal district court in

Massachusetts.

Orrick last week in a filing said its settlement

negotiations for defendant Paycom Payroll were proper, and urged

U.S. District Judge Alison Burroughs in Boston to find that the

law firm, one of the country's largest, had not run afoul of

case management orders. Oklahoma-based Paycom last year was a

victim of the MOVEit-related cyber attack.

Federman told Reuters on Wednesday that the opposition from

lawyers involved in the Boston litigation amounted to "personal

attacks" against him. He defended the Oklahoma settlement as

being good for the plaintiffs.

Orrick did not immediately respond to requests for comment

on Wednesday, and neither did the attorneys who are leading the

multidistrict litigation in Boston.

The submissions from Orrick and Federman, who is based in

Oklahoma, came in response to an Aug. 13 order from Burroughs

directing the firm and attorney to explain their actions.

The attorneys leading the federal litigation had raised

questions about the propriety of the settlement in Oklahoma,

prompting Burroughs to investigate.

In a filing, the lawyers in Burroughs' court asserted that

Orrick and Federman had negotiated a settlement that could

unfairly knock out claims in the litigation in Boston.

The lawyers in the federal case contend they were not timely

told about the negotiations in Oklahoma and that the attorneys

there were engaging in "bad-faith procedural gamesmanship."

Orrick and Federman countered that the settlement

negotiations in Oklahoma began in February, before Burroughs

issued a key case management order that is in dispute.

Federman's filing accused class counsel of spinning a "false

narrative." Orrick told Burroughs that Paycom wants to "put

money in the pockets of the individuals whose data was impacted,

and move on with business."

Burroughs has not yet said what further steps, if any, she

will take as part of her review.

The case is In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach

Litigation, U.S. District Court for the District of

Massachusetts, No. 1:23-md-03083-ADB.

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