PORTLAND, Ore. (Legal Newsline) – Lawyers will take around $1.7 million from a settlement with Portland General Electric, thanks to approval from an Oregon federal judge.
Judge Michael Simon on March 22 issued final approval of the class action settlement in a lawsuit brought by shareholders of PGE after the company announced a loss of $128 million in August 2020, which led to a $4 stock drop.
The settlement was proposed in July 2021 and provides $6.75 million. Grant & Eisenhofer is lead counsel for the case.
The plaintiff’s expert calculated total possible damages from $46.1 million to $51.3 million.
“The settlement amount therefore provides a recovery of 13.2% to 14.6% of the total estimated damages. This factor favors approval,” Simon wrote.
PGE announced a $128 million loss on Aug. 24 while placing two unnamed employees on administrative leave and creating a committee to review its energy trading practices. The news caused its stock price to fall by nearly 8% and wiped out more than $300 million in shareholder value, the lawsuit alleges.
“The surprise announcement of a nine-figure loss arising from a business segment that investors did not know even existed other than to hedge and manage risk stunned the markets and decimated PGE’s stock price, which fell by nearly 8% on unusually heavy volume as a result of the announcement,” the suit says.
“The stock’s decline wiped out over $300 million in shareholder value.”
Grant & Eisenhofer spent 924.6 hours at hourly rates from $220 to $1,000, while liaison counsel at Stoll Berne expended 61 hours at rates from $470 and $635.
A lodestar amount of $624,015.25 was determined, and class counsel asked for 25% of the settlement amount – roughly $1.7 million. A lodestar multiplier of 2.7 is reasonable, Simon ruled.
Class counsel will also recover $86,382.59 in expenses, which included an energy trading expert, an economics expert and an investigative firm “to develop the facts of the case.”