Alsup grouses about plaintiffs’ fees in securities settlement

SAN FRANCISCO -- A Northern District judge gave his final approval to a $72.5 million settlement in a securities class action brought against semiconductor company Marvell Technology Group Ltd. but told plaintiffs' lawyers he was unlikely to grant their full request for attorney fees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco sent out an order Monday night, laying out his preferred format for attorney fee requests, and told the plaintiffs' legal team at a hearing Tuesday he was displeased that they didn't provide the level of detail he sought.

Scott H. Saham, a partner with Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, said his team didn't have enough time to give Alsup the kind of granular data he wanted on short notice.

Saham and his team are seeking 22 percent of the settlement in attorney fees. Luna et al. v. Marvell Technology Group Ltd. et al., 15-CV5447 (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 27, 2015).

Alsup said he was also chagrined that the plaintiffs' team only provided him limited testimony from their damages expert in their motion contending the settlement was a high-quality result for the class.

The judge grumbled that he would have preferred to see the full report the expert would have presented to the jury.

"What I wanted to see was what the experts were going to use at trial," Alsup said. "That's the only way to keep these experts honest."

Alsup said the attorneys would have argued the case was worth more if they were in front of a jury instead of settling it.

Saham responded that the judge told him earlier in the case that his team was improperly inflating the potential liability for the defendant when projecting how much money class members allegedly lost when the value of Marvell's shares declined.

"Your honor admonished us that we were going to have to reduce that number," he said.

Saham said his team worked under difficult conditions and short deadlines to prepare for a high-stakes trial.

"We went to war on this case. Your honor gave us a very short period to prepare the case for trial," he said. "We were up against, at one point, six big defense firms. It was pulling teeth to get every document in this case, to show defendants we were ready to try the case two months from now."

"What I'm questioning is the number of people in the room," Alsup said. "For these depositions, sometimes in the courtroom you'd have six lawyers."

The judge softened his tone as the hearing came to a close.

"I do want to say you did a good job in this case. I know I gave you a lot of grief. I do it on behalf of the class," he said. "Some judges are more generous than other judges. Some judges like me feel that the class comes first."