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How Much of the Excessive Fee Settlements Go to Lawyers?

In class action suits, plaintiffs’ attorneys generally receive a fee whose amount is contingent on the amount of the verdict or settlement – frequently about a third.

What about the excessive fee suits?

Most of the excessive fee suits brought to date haven’t made it to trial, but a number have settled, some just before going to trial.

It is worth noting that the more recent settlements are about more than money. Many also include a requirement to put recordkeeping services out to bid via an RFP, the inclusion of passively managed funds, the removal of retail class mutual funds, a cap of participant fees, enlisting the services of an independent consultant, and enhanced participant disclosures, among other things (see below for details).

As for the attorney fees, the Multnomah Group has compiled a list of those settlements – and the plaintiffs’ attorney fees in those cases. Based on data from that report, we’ve calculated the attorney fee as a percentage of the settlement for each case, here.

Of course, that doesn’t include what defendants’ attorneys are collecting.


















































































DefendantSettlementAttorney Fee% of Settlement
Ameriprise Financial$36.5 M$9.0 M24.7%
Bechtel$26.2 M$7.7 M29.4%
Boeing$57 M$20.8 M36.5%
Caterpillar$22.3 M$5.83 M26.1%
Cigna$47.8 M$12.8 M26.8%
General Dynamics$20.9 M$5.7 M27.3%
International Paper$41.5 M$11.5 M27.7%
Kraft$14.2 M$4.7 M33.1%
Lockheed Martin Corp$84.3 M$22.3 M26.5%
Mass Mutual$9.8 M$315k3.2%
Nationwide$190 M$50 M26.3%
Novant Health$32 M$10.8 M33.8%

For more details on these cases, see:

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