Lawyers, consultants and advisers to the ‘old’ General Motors are chasing their money, according to the Detroit News.
The newspaper said that they have asked a federal bankruptcy judge to approve about US$125m in fees for GM’s court restructuring.
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General Motors Corp filed for bankruptcy in June 2009 under a government-sponsored restructuring and a US$49.5bn US government bailout. Its successor, General Motors Co, exited bankruptcy in July 2009 as a new company formed by the sale of the old company’s good assets to a government owned company.
Court records filed this week show show the largest fee is GM’s lead bankruptcy firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which is seeking US$46.1m in fees and expenses.
About 400 lawyers at Weil worked on the GM bankruptcy, according to billing records filed by the company. More than 30 lawyers at Weil billed at least US$900 an hour each with some European-based lawyers charging US$1,000 an hour.
The average rate charged by lawyers and their support staff was US$602 an hour. The lawyers billed for more than 70,000 hours of work between June 2009 and March of this year.
GM’s lead bankruptcy attorney, Harvey R Miller, billed for US$641,000, charging $960 to $990 an hour. Another lawyer, David Berz, charged US$860 to US$900 an hour and billed US$3.25m between June 2009 and March.
More than 100 paralegals, librarians and law clerks also worked on the case at Weil.
Evercore Group is claiming US$16m, and FTI Consulting billed for US$18.6m. Deloitte Tax is seeking US$1.9m; Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn has billed US$2.4m; and Jenner & Block, US$5.2mn.
A US bankruptcy judge will hold a hearing next month on all but one of the fee requests; a request from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel for US$11.5m will be heard separately.
