Judge: Lawyers Must Justify Fee Requests For Investor Suits Withdrawn Vs Akorn Over Proxy Disclosures
Cook County Record cited CEI’s Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney Ted Frank on attorney fee requests.
However, those fees drew the objection of Ted Frank, director of the Center for Class Action Fairness at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who also owned 1,000 shares of Akorn stock. In his objections, Frank asked the judge to allow him to intervene, asserting the lawsuits hurt Akorn and its shareholders, costing the company money unnecessarily. He further argued the attorney fee requests don’t hold up under the Seventh Circuit’s Walgreen standard, because the disclosures in the proxy statement, which formed the basis of the lawsuits from House and his co-plaintiffs, don’t involve disclosures that were “plainly material” to the Akorn-Fresenius merger and acquisition.
While Judge Durkin refused Frank’s request to intervene as a litigant, the judge said the plaintiffs’ attorneys must address Frank’s contentions concerning the Walgreen decision before allowing the attorneys to keep their fees.