The shareholders claimed that Google was aware that users’ personal data was compromised but hid it, wiping out billions of dollars of shareholder value once the deception was discovered.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — An attorney representing shareholders who sued Google after a glitch on Google+ exposed users’ privacy data told a federal judge Tuesday afternoon that he was seeking $66 million in attorney’s fees as part of a $350 million settlement Google agreed to in February to resolve the case.
The shareholders had claimed in their 2018 complaint that by March 2018, Google was aware of a three-year software glitch that exposed Google+ users’ personal data, but chose to hide the problem while publicly stressing its commitment to data security. Google, the plaintiffs claim, was fearful that disclosure of the glitch would lead to regulatory action and public scrutiny.
Jason Forge, counsel for the shareholders, told U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, a Joe Biden appointee, that the $66 million figure was justified because of the length of the case, its procedural history and how much work went into securing a settlement with Google.
Forge explained that the case was thrown out by a different district judge in 2020 before the decision was reversed on appeal, and that it took “several years” and millions of dollars just to get the case back into federal court before Thompson.
“We’re talking about a situation where you have to have over a dozen lawyers spending well in excess of 20,000 hours working on this case and in areas that require significant expertise,” Forge told Thompson.
Forge called Google “the best resourced adversary in the world,” with lawyers across the globe arguing to support its positions in various courts. He said the shareholders went into each hearing as underdogs because of Google’s massive resources.
“We were up against some of the best lawyers in this line of work. And so that meant that every step that we take is going to be opposed, and it was, and this was a really hard fought litigation,” Forge said, before explaining the untold hours of work that his team did looking through cases against Google in other districts.
According to the shareholders, when the software glitch was eventually discovered, shares of Alphabet fell several times, wiping out tens of billions of dollars of market value.
The lawsuit was brought by Rhode Island Treasurer James Diossa, on behalf of a state pension fund that owned Alphabet stock and covers Alphabet shareholders from April 23, 2018 to April 30, 2019. Alphabet is the parent of Google.
Thompson also noted Tuesday that there were 58 people who opted out of the settlement, and asked Forge what impact that has on the settlement.
Forge replied that the opt outs were “negligible,” noting that the 58 people represented just 6,000 of over 113 million damaged shares, or 0.005 percent.
“They’d need to have 200 times the number of shares involved just to get to a 1% level,” Forge said.
Boris Feldman, counsel for Google, declined to speak at the hearing. In court papers, Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle and said that it found no evidence that data was misused.
Thompson promised an order within one week, and said that her primary concern was figuring out if the $66 million number was commensurate with how much work was put into the case.
“That’s the only remaining issue, if any,” she said.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
إرسال تعليق