Amazon, Apple seek legal fees as sanction in US consumer lawsuit

Apple and Amazon have requested for a mixed $223,000 in sanctions in opposition to a distinguished class motion legislation agency, accusing it of dragging out litigation over the value of iPhones and iPads after the preliminary plaintiff within the case sought to drop out. US district decide Kymberly Evanson in Seattle final month stated the businesses may ask to get well authorized charges from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro for failing to right away disclose that its consumer needed out of the case.

Hagens Berman “needlessly extended this litigation and required appreciable judicial sources,” Evanson stated.

The businesses stated of their price request on Friday that their authorized groups labored greater than 350 hours on motions regarding in search of details about the plaintiff.

Spokespeople for Hagens Berman, Apple and Amazon didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. The lawsuit, which accuses the businesses of conspiring to artificially inflate the value of iPhones and iPads offered on Amazon’s platform, is constant after different plaintiffs had been added to the case.

Apple and Amazon have denied the antitrust claims.

Apple is represented by attorneys from Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, whereas Amazon has a workforce from Sidley Austin, Redgrave and Davis Wright Tremaine. The tech corporations stated they’d restrict their price request to match hourly charges sometimes charged within the Western District of Washington. Weil accomplice Mark Perry, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who co-leads the agency’s appellate and strategic counseling follow, stated his price for the aim of the price request was $900 an hour. Perry and different defence legal professionals within the case didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Hagens Berman consumer Steven Floyd advised his legal professionals in January 2024 that he needed out of the litigation as a result of he didn’t need to take part within the discovery course of, Evanson stated final month.

However the agency didn’t instantly disclose this to the court docket, the decide stated, and as an alternative created the impression that Floyd “had instantly fallen out of contact in January 2024, for causes his counsel didn’t know and probably unrelated to the litigation.”

Hagens Berman’s “characterizations of Floyd’s state of affairs over the previous fourteen months haven’t mirrored his actuality,” Evanson stated.

The decide on Tuesday formally dismissed Floyd’s claims from the lawsuit.

William Burck and Alex Spiro aren’t the one companions at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan who’re charging $3,000 an hour.

Court docket filings in a $34 million price struggle between Quinn Emanuel and former consumer Desktop Steel confirmed that Michael Carlinsky, co-managing accomplice of the agency, can be charging the $3,000 hourly price.

Carlinsky stated in an e mail he’s “honoured to be in the identical membership, so to talk, as Spiro and Burck. Two high-quality legal professionals.”

Reuters first reported Burck and Spiro’s sky-high billing charges in February. Susman Godfrey additionally has a pair of veteran litigators – Neal Manne and Invoice Carmody – who’re charging that a lot.