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Lawyers seek over $288K per hour in attorney fees, payable in Tesla stock, for suit toppling Elon Musk’s compensation

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 4, 2024, 1:28 pm CST

The three law firms that successfully sued to overturn SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $55.8 billion Tesla compensation package are seeking attorney fees payable in company stock worth more than $5.6 billion.

The lawyers are seeking about 11% of Tesla shares worth more than $51 billion that were freed up as a result of the litigation, according to the brief supporting the fee application. They are also seeking more than $1 million for litigation expenses.

Law360, Reuters, Fortune and the New York Post have coverage of the fee request.

The fee request amounts to more than $288,000 per hour, according to the 127th footnote in the brief.

“These implied hourly rates and lodestar multiples are admittedly unprecedented,” the brief says. “But that is a function of the gargantuan size of the tort underlying this action, and plaintiff’s counsel’s
achievement of an unprecedented, total victory in challenging that tort.”

The three firms seeking the fees are Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann; Friedman Oster & Tejtel; and Andrews & Springer.

The record for a fee award in a shareholder case was $688 million in 2008, which was awarded to lawyers who sued over the collapse of the Enron Corp., according to the news coverage.

Judge Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s chancery court had ruled Jan. 30 that Musk’s $56 billion pay package was unfair to shareholders, Reuters previously reported.

The name plaintiff in the case is stockholder Richard Tornetta, who was at one time the drummer in the band Dawn of Correction, according to the New York Post.