July 18 (Reuters) - Attorneys who reached a $490 million

securities class action settlement with Apple ( AAPL ) earlier this year

are hoping to walk away with a quarter of that amount in legal

fees, arguing that the risks they took warrant a hefty reward.

Lawyers at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Labaton Keller

Sucharow this week asked a federal judge in Oakland, California

to award them $122.5 million, or about $3,100 an hour for the 65

lawyers and staffers who together devoted 39,500 hours to the

case, according to the firms' filings.

Multiplying those hours by the professionals' hourly rates

would yield an award of about $27.8 million, they said, arguing

that their much larger request is appropriate given their

adversary was "the largest - and arguably one of the most

powerful - companies on the planet."

Lawyers involved in the case at Robbins Geller and Labaton

and a spokesperson for Apple ( AAPL ) did not immediately respond to

requests for comment.

The settlement resolves allegations that Apple ( AAPL ) CEO Tim Cook

defrauded shareholders by concealing falling demand for iPhones

in China. When Apple ( AAPL ) reduced its quarterly revenue forecast by

as much as $9 billion in 2019, it was the first time since the

iPhone's launch that Apple ( AAPL ) had cut its revenue forecast. Apple ( AAPL )

denied the claims.

The firms' $122.5 million request matches the benchmark of

25% of a class action settlement fund for attorney fee awards

adopted by federal courts in California and elsewhere in the 9th

Circuit. But courts there have sometimes pushed back at the 25%

standard in so-called megafund cases where settlements exceed

$100 million.

In 2015, for instance, a San Jose federal judge slashed an

attorney fee request of 19.54% to around 10% in a $415 million

settlement that ended a high-profile lawsuit accusing Apple ( AAPL ),

Google and two other Silicon Valley companies of conspiring to

hold down salaries.

"This 25% benchmark is clearly too high in some cases," said

University of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard, who studies

securities class actions. Pritchard co-authored a 2023 study

that estimated that Robbins Geller earned more than $1 billion

in fees from securities class actions from 2005 to 2018.

Robbins Geller and Labaton said Apple's ( AAPL ) all-cash $490

million settlement is the third-largest deal of its kind in the

Northern District of California, and one of the 40 largest

settlements ever in a securities class action.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is weighing the

fee bid as she decides whether to grant final approval to the

settlement. She is no stranger to major litigation against

Apple ( AAPL ), and in 2022 she approved a $26 million fee award in an

antitrust class action related to the company's App Store that

settled for $100 million.

Rogers is also currently weighing a $217 million fee request

from Boies Schiller Flexner, Morgan & Morgan and Susman Godfrey

after the firms reached a non-monetary settlement with Google in

a consumer privacy case. Google has opposed the fee award.

Responses to the fee request in the Apple ( AAPL ) securities case

are due July 29, and a hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17.

AUCTION AVERTED

On the other side of the country, a dispute over a much

smaller legal fee briefly caught the attention of South

Florida's art scene when it threatened to put a prominent

dealer's collection of Latin American and other artwork on the

auction block.

A Miami judge canceled the July 22 auction on Monday after

the dealer, Gary Nader, put up a half-million-dollar bond to

cover legal fees he was ordered to pay his ex-lawyers at Fort

Lauderdale firm Stok Kon + Braverman.

Stok Kon's Robert Stok told Reuters he believed the auction

could have forced Nader to sell a "large inventory of artwork"

worth as much as $100 million.

A lawyer for Nader said his client owed Stok Kon nothing and

accused the firm of "extremely aggressive collection tactics."

Stok Kon sued Nader in 2022, alleging he owed more than

$216,000 in unpaid fees stemming from the firm's legal work on a

failed museum development project. A judge ruled in April that

Nader must pay Stok Kon its fees plus interest, and last month

ordered that Nader's sole membership interest in his company,

Gary Nader & Company LLC, be auctioned off to satisfy the

judgment.

The company's holdings include a building in Miami's Wynwood

Art District that houses Nader's gallery and museum. The museum

on its website said it has 30,000 square feet of exhibition

space showcasing art from Latin America and the Caribbean,

including a collection of work from Columbian artist Fernando

Botero.

Nader has appealed the court's judgment.

(Legal Fee Tracker is a weekly feature exploring attorney

compensation awards and disputes in class actions, bankruptcies

and other matters. Please send tips or suggestions to

[email protected].)

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