A $22 million New York state Supreme Court suit filed late last month by Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann and Berman DeValerio reveals the dealmaking that led up to the selection of lead counsel in the Adelphia Communications case. The Adelphia class action ended in 2006 with $455 million in settlements from Deloitte & Touche and almost three dozen banks. In 2007, Southern District Judge Lawrence McKenna approved $97 million in fees for the plaintiffs lawyers, who were led by class counsel from Abbey Spanier Rodd & Abrams and Kirby McInerney.
But it turns out that Abbey Spanier and Kirby McInerney had a little help en route to their lead counsel appointment, according to the Bernstein Litowitz and Berman DeValerio complaint. The complaint asserts that Bernstein and Berman agreed in 2003 to withdraw a competing bid to lead the case. All four plaintiffs firms, according to the complaint, signed a contract in which, in exchange for Bernstein and Berman dropping their lead counsel motion, Abbey and Kirby pledged to support the other firms’ clients as class representatives in future complaints in the Adelphia litigation and to give Bernstein and Berman 25 percent of the legal work in the case.
