Opinion ID: 1560325
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Adequacy of Class Counsel

Text: The adequacy of class counsel is indisputably an important judicial consideration in the certification of a class. [42] Although the Objectors claim that class counsel have a conflict that fatally compromises counsel's ability adequately to represent the class, they present no evidence to support that position. Their claim that class counsel has been closely allied with Susquehanna, an architect of the allegedly wrongful scheme, from the outset, takes the form of a bare assertion in Settlement Appellants' brief with no citation to the record. Moreover, that argument cannot be reconciled with the undisputed fact that Susquehanna, supposedly a co-conspirator with class counsel, is an objector to the very settlement that class counsel negotiated and is now defending. Finally, the inadequacy argument fails to come to grips in any lawyerlike way with the Chancellor's finding that class counsel have vigorously and tenaciously advanced the interests of the class at each step of the litigation. Stating that the case was litigated by very capable counsel, the Chancellor went on to find that: All I can tell you, from someone who has only been doing this for roughly 22 years, is that I have yet to see a more fiercely and intensely litigated case than this case. Never in 22 years have I seen counsel going at it, hammer and tong, like they have gone at it in this case. And I think that's a testimonyMr. Valihura [Delaware counsel for the Settlement Appellants] correctly says that's what they are supposed to do. I recognize that; that is their job, and they were doing it professionally. The Objectors have presented no facts or evidence to controvert this finding. Accordingly, their attack upon the adequacy of class counsel must fail.