Kelly M. Dermody

On Aug. 8, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh denied plaintiffs' motion for preliminary approval of settlements with four high-tech titans.

In May, class counsel had filed the motion for preliminary approval of a $324.5 million settlement with Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Intel Corp., over allegations that they had violated antitrust laws by conspiring to not recruit each other's employees. In Re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, CV-11-2509 (N.D. Cal., filed May 23, 2011).

Prior to that, the court had granted final approval to settlements valued at $20 million that had been reached with Intuit Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd. and Pixar the previous year.

According to information contained in Koh's ruling, the settled defendants employed 8 percent of class members. So, if the remaining defendants were to settle at the same, or higher rate, the settlement fund would need to total at least $380 million.

"The court concludes that the remaining defendants should, at a minimum, pay their fair share as compared to the settled defendants, who resolved their case with plaintiffs at a stage of the litigation where defendants had much more leverage over plaintiffs," Koh wrote in her decision.

"It's disappointing," said Dermody, who serves as co-lead class counsel. "You spend a lot of energy figuring out when is the right time to resolve a case and the expectation is that it will get final approval. But cases do have hiccups sometimes."

As for Koh's reasoning, Dermody added, "She is creating a formula and a new rule that has never been applied before. We will work with what she sees as the law."

A status conference on the matter is set for this month.

"The whole case has been going at 100 miles an hour," Dermody said. "Then, we had a moment of pause. Now, we are going 100 miles per hour again."

In another ongoing matter, Dermody is serving as co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in a gender discrimination class-action lawsuit against Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

At issue are allegations that it engaged it systemic and pervasive discrimination against its female professional employees. Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., CV-10-6950 (S.D. N.Y., filed Sept 15, 2010).

"This is a very closely watched and high-interest matter," Dermody said.

A class-certification hearing is set on Oct. 1.

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