Judge weighs fairness of Citigroup’s $590 mln investor pact

Reuters reports on CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness’s founder Ted Frank’s objection to the fees in a Citigroup class action settlement. 

The judge also reviewed a request by plaintiffs’ lawyers for an award of $97.4 million in fees plus $2.8 million in expenses in the case. The fee request would amount to about 16.5 percent of the total settlement.

The proposed fees have drawn the objection of a prominent class-action reform activist, Ted Frank, who criticized what he called excessive rates billed by contract attorneys hired by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Contract attorneys billed an average of $465 an hour on the case, and their work reflected more than half of the amount the plaintiffs submitted to support their request, according to court records.

Frank told the judge the majority of corporate clients pay less than $70 an hour for temporary contract attorneys.

Read the full article at Reuters.