The award by Delaware’s Chancery Court was $2 billion with an equally unprecedented $304 million in attorney’s fees for the plaintiffs.
That’s $35-thousand an hour for those lawyers.
The judgment was upheld by the state Supreme Court on a 4-to-1 vote in the suit filed by Southern Copper shareholders against Grupo Mexico SAB.
That firm was accused of directing its subsidiary Southern Copper to acquire a third mining company for an over-inflated price.
That led to the suit by the shareholders of Southern Copper.
The attorneys representing Southern Copper wanted 22.5 percent of the award but that was cut to 15 percent by the lower high court.
Columbia Law School professor John Coffee told the Wilmington News Journal that the case appears to mark a significant shift in how much Delaware is willing to award in fees to plaintiff’s attorneys in big corporate cases.