Antitrust & Trade Reg.
May 18, 2026
Donato calls Google plaintiffs' fee request 'patently unreasonable'
Plaintiffs' attorneys defending an $85 million fee request in the Google Play Store antitrust settlement faced intense questioning from a federal judge who compared the claimed workload to building the pyramids.
U.S. District Judge James Donato expressed skepticism about class counsel's request for $85 million in attorneys' fees tied to an antitrust settlement with Google, calling their estimate that plaintiffs' attorneys worked 98,200 hours for the case "bloated."
"Atlas himself could not lift that number of hours on his back," Donato said at a final approval hearing in late April.
The plaintiffs, joined by a group of state attorneys general, str...
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