Opinion ID: 781984
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Settlements

Text: 6 In late 2000, plaintiffs reached an $8 million settlement with BDO purporting to allocate $4,907,975.50 to out-of-pocket damages and $3,092,024.50 to pre-judgment interest. Plaintiffs also reached a $4,075,000 settlement with HSBC and Driol, allocating $1,300,000 to out-of-pocket damages, $819,000 to prejudgment interest, and $1,956,000 to attorneys' fees (which are recoverable under RICO). In exchange, plaintiffs agreed to release BDO, HSBC and Driol for all claims they might have against the settling defendants in any forum, related in any way to the MTC litigation. 7 These settlements were submitted to the district court for approval, and were referred to Magistrate Judge Chrein for a recommended ruling. The settling parties sought an order finding that the settlements were good faith settlements under California and federal law, barring claims by the non-settling defendants while preserving the claims of the settling defendants, dismissing the claims pending in the Eastern District of New York, and approving the allocation of damages while leaving the determination of any judgment credit for the non-settling defendants until after trial. Although plaintiffs had made settlement contingent on the district court's adoption of their specific allocations, they subsequently agreed to finalize the settlements if the propriety of the allocations within the settlement figure was left to the trial judge.