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Apple Doesn’t Want to Pay the Feds’ E-Book Lawyer $70,000 a Week
- RexRollman 13y agoAlthough I supported the anti-trust action taken against Apple, I have to say that agree with them in regards to these ridiculous charges.
- craigyk 13y agoOn top of that, from what I read, he regularly demands meetings with Cook, Ive, etc. Seems like the actions of someone on a power trip.
- DanBC 13y agoSir Jonathon Ive is senior vice president of design, and is listed as an executive, and was considered to be Jobs's "spiritual partner at Apple". Look at the placement of Ive here http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ When a company fucks up, and is caught, and has court ordered scrutiny, it seems reasonable that the executives are going to be scrutinised. The way to avoid this scrutiny is to avoid breaking the law.
- bdcravens 13y agoexcessive meeting requests interfere with top executives interfere with the company's ability to conduct everyday business, which isn't the purpose of a "compliance monitor". If anything, the percentage of the executive's time should be limited to the percentage of their profits derived from said antitrust violation. Apple has about $30B in revenue; depending on the source, Apple at most had about $300M in revenue a year from eBook sales (probably much lower than that). So 1% of each executive's time, or about 20 minutes per week, seems about right.
- quesera 13y agoThat's ludicrous. Ive is an industrial designer, recently tasked with some UI work. His relevance to anything ebook related is less than zero. Cook is in charge, so he has to show up sometimes, sign off on SOX paperwork, etc. The entirety of Apple's compliance effort is managed by someone else, but every project needs a Responsible Individual.
- jasonlotito 13y ago> His relevance to anything ebook related is less than zero. By Ive's own admission, this is false.
- quesera 13y agoMea culpa. Google fails me, please elaborate.
- timw6n 13y agoNot that I'm disagreeing with your main point, but the listing on that Apple page is in alphabetical order, so I'm not sure anything can be inferred from that...
- DanBC 13y agoI fail! Thanks for pointing it out.
- gress 13y agoBy your reasoning it would be fair for the entire executive team to spend a day a week being questioned.
- willvarfar 13y agoThese interviews being in the first two weeks, though. Is that 'regularly'?
- freehunter 13y agoDoes all of that $1100/hr go to Bromwich, or is it payed to the federal government (or the company that pays Bromwich) who then pays Bromwich some percentage of that? We've had contracts at work for $80,000/yr where the contractor only saw $50,000 of that. The rest was payed to the company he worked for. If the entire sum isn't going to Bromwich or if the court agrees with the price he's charging, I'd chalk it up to being the price you pay for anti-trust behavior. Then again, I don't know how much a company should pay for compliance monitoring after being convicted of anti-trust behavior. Either way it is a lot of money, but if it's not all going to Bromwich's pockets, it sounds like a fine being imposed for the duration of the anti-trust monitoring.
- judk 13y agoAssessing a fine, paid to govt or restitution is one thing. Mandating an extorntionate contract , payable to the judge's buddy, is another.
- freehunter 13y agoThat's exactly the differentiation I tried to raise in my point. Is this a fine paid to the government who then pays the lawyer some percentage, or is all of this money going to the lawyer? One would be acceptable, the other would be less so.
- judk 13y agoFrom what I read, it is the legal fees from "privatized" complance monitoring.
- carbocation 13y agoIf Apple were forced to pay the State $70,000 per week, I don't think this would be an issue. I do find it uncomfortable that the State is forcing Apple to transfer wealth to another private party without any (obvious) oversight.
- dnautics 13y agomoreover the private party's flippant attitude is really distressing. i'm no fan of Apple, but this has now become an abuse of power, whether or not the actual financial costs are reasonable.
- andyakb 13y agoit's an abuse of power to be flippant?
- gress 13y agoYes, when your job is to be a neutral arbiter of a very narrow legal compliance issue. It is not his job to be prejudiced about the company as a whole, to conduct arbitrary investigations, or to punish the company by interfering with the work of its executive team.
- gamblor956 13y agoHis job is not to be a neutral arbiter, indeed, the very definition of his job is that he not be neutral. His job is to monitor compliance. The easiest way to do this would be to periodically interview those responsible for implementing compliance. The alternative would be for him to audit (i.e., investigate) Apple's relevant business and operational activities, which would cause a significantly greater disruption to the business.
- gress 13y agoHis job is absolutely to monitor compliance, but it is not his job to punish the company, investigate it for anything else, or to harrass the executives. If he cannot monitor for technical compliance without assuming an overreaching authority over operations, then a more competent monitor should be assigned.
- rayiner 13y agoThis article provides more context: http://allthingsd.com/20131017/apple-gets-its-e-book-antitrust-monitor http://allthingsd.com/20131017/apple-gets-its-e-book-antitru... "Together, Bromwich and Nigro will oversee Apple’s internal antitrust compliance policies and employee training on them for the next two years." $1,100 an hour is not an unusually high fee for internal investigations work, nor does $70,000 per week seem unusually high for an ongoing compliance investigation and policy restructuring of an organization as large as Apple. This sort of work usually involves getting down into the weeds and looking at how even fairly low-level employees go about their jobs. The going rate for this sort of work tends to be pretty high, because companies who hire law firm to do an internal investigation tend to be in a pretty tight spot.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoThis is the first time I've heard someone try to explain an extortionate hourly rate as "reasonable fees". Would the argument be the same if a private firm was charging the government at the same rate? Or would we be here with pitchforks demanding answers?
- ghshephard 13y agoWhat makes you think the rates are "extortionate?" I don't really know if they are or not, but I'm wondering if you have some information that supports your position?
- icelancer 13y agoHis entire argument is: "Because it's being done does not make it reasonable. There is no world in which $1000/hr is a reasonable fee for any human being to do any work." So, no, he has no evidence.
- booruguru 13y ago> There is no world in which $1000/hr is a reasonable fee for any human being to do any work." ...Unless you're a ceo, banker, actor, musician, writer or athlete.
- forgotAgain 13y agoThe $70k / week figure given is for the first two weeks. I'm going to jump to a conclusion and say that the first two weeks will be above average in cost due to introductory meetings, posturing on both sides, and generally bringing the process up to speed. The $1,100 / hour is not out of line for a top law firm. It would be interesting to know what Apple is paying it's outside attorneys. The claim that the figure is "higher than Apple has ever encountered for any task" is clearly untrue. Apple has payed it's own executives much more in the past.
- rpedela 13y agoI think it is implied that "any task" means "any legal task". $1100/hour is definitely the highest I have ever heard of for a lawyer, much higher.
- kumarm 13y agoHow About Apple publishing their lawyer fees to prove $1100/hour is high? Not going to happen. Why?
- kanzure 13y agoBecause then competitors know how much of Apple's time they have to waste (in court) to produce a certain amount of Apple legal expenses.
- criley2 13y agoAny competitor with the clout the "punish" Apple, getting them to fold, already pays as much or more than Apple for their own team.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MaysonL 13y agoThey say in their complaint that 1100 + 15% is higher than any lawyer has ever been paid in any Apple matter. From the complaint: As Apple explained to Mr. Bromwich, of all known past Apple matters, “not a single partner had an effective billing rate as high as or higher than those that [Mr. Bromwich has] proposed.” ... . And Mr. Bromwich’s rates in this matter dramatically exceed what he has quoted in the past.
- DanBC 13y ago> Bromwich’s bill for his five-person team’s first two weeks of work: $138,432 To be fair, that's only $27,686 each per fortnight. Assuming 50 hour work weeks, that's only $276 per hour. As always, check my arithmetic. 138432 / 5 people = 27686. 27686 / 100 hours = 276. That's not far off a run of the mill family lawyer in England. (Without barristers and court fees.)
- dvanduzer 13y agoYou should read the complaint. The hourly rate is explicitly $1100/hr for Bromwich, and $1025/hr for his staff. Apple's legal team uses the number from the bill for two weeks in order to compare it to a judge's typical annual salary.
- judk 13y agoYou are assuming 50 hours per week each, all for this one case, not supported by the article
- crag 13y agoPlease.. what lawyer you know works 50 hours a week? Unless there's an active trial.
- gamblor956 13y agoMost lawyers not employed by the government work more than 60 hours a week on a normal basis. When there is an active trial or court hearing to prepare for, that number usually jumps to 80 hours a week or more. For BigLaw lawyers (i.e., the largest law firms), 80 hours a week is considered a vacation; most of them work at least 12 hours a day every day, including weekends! The unreasonable workloads and time expectations are one of the reasons that lawyers as a profession are so depressed...and why law school enrollment plummeted so far once the legal market crashed and salaries fell.
- DanBC 13y agoBillable hours. They cram 'em in.
- vonskippy 13y agoHow awful, Apple breaks the law and then whines about the pocket change ($70K x 52wks x 2years = $7.3M) charge for enforcing it's own compliance. If Apple thinks $70K/week is high for lawyers, wait until they get the overage bills from their new HQ building contractors.
- kevrone 13y agoI really don't care about Apple's problems. Apple can take care of itself.
- gress 13y agoFirst they came for Apple...
- joshuamerrill 13y agoIs it worth mentioning that on top of the $1,100 hourly rate for Bromwich, and the $1,025 hourly rate for the assisting law firm, Fried Frank, he's also demanding a 15% "service charge"? From page 23: "And Mr. Bromwich’s rates in this matter dramatically exceed what he has quoted in the past. For instance, in a proposal to monitor the New Orleans Police Department five months ago, he suggested a $495 hourly rate, without an administrative fee, which the Department of Justice termed 'relatively expensive.'"
- DannyBee 13y agoUsually in these situations, lawyers give high rates expecting the judge to knock it down. Judges always (rightly or wrongly) think lawyers are being paid too much, and often just halve the rate or whatever. This is often true regardless of what number is given. So if you don't want to end up being ordered by a court to work at 25% of your actual market rate, you often have to give exorbitant numbers.
- victorbstan 13y agoI'm sorry, I don't see how anyone should be defending a lawyer's fees at that price. I look at law the way I look at open source software, (the law should be accessible to everyone, for free, if they know how to interpret it). You can hire experts in law, as you hire experts in open source software (lawyers/programmers). Now imagine, for example, two startups competing with on the same technology (say Rails (whatever)) in the same market (whatever). Now imagine one of the two startups wins a dominant market position and the other has to fold. You don't imagine the developers of the winning startup demanding some arbitrary fee from the company they beat. It would seem absurd. Yet here are people defending thousands of dollars an hour, for a human being to interpret the law, which is the same for everyone and should be accessible to anyone (even though we all know navigating the legal system is probably worse than navigating through WordPress source code). I don't see how a lawyer on the opposing team should be able to charge me an arbitrary amount.
- MaysonL 13y agoThe price Mr. Bromwich is demanding is a sideshow. The real objection Apple has is that what he demands, and the judge proposes to give him, is not within her power to grant. All that a special master is allowed to do is what the court is allowed to do, and what the parties consent to. Apple isn't consenting to anything beyond its legal obligations. It is not in the judge's power to interview witnesses alone, without their counsel present if desired. Apple's main complaint is that Bromwich is trying to act as a prosecutor, rather than as a representative of, or substitute for, the judge
- x0054 13y agoSo, Apple has to pay Bromwhich $1,265/hr ($1,100/hr + 15%) to oversee the antitrust compliance and then, additional $1025/hr to the outside counsel who would consult Bromwhich on the relevant Antitrust law. All this because Bromwhich admits that he has NO antitrust experience. So, why was he chosen in the first place?!?! Say I show up at your firm, get hired as a senior C++ developer. Then on the first day I show up, and tell you: "You know how you are paying me $X/hour to do this job. Yeah... You know, I don't actually know how to do this job, but John here does. He's going to be working "with" me. So, in addition to $X/hour for me, you'll need to pay John here $X/hour as well. Yeah..., so will get started now, right?"
- linuxhansl 13y ago> "it doesn’t matter if you think my fees are reasonable, because you don’t get to negotiate them: You just pay them" Nice. Spoken like a true lawyer. How did legal fees get so high anyway? Do lawyers perform a task more skillfull than (say) software engineers? It seems under $350/h a lawyer won't move a finger. Software engineers do not (typically) make $350/h. Also it looks like high lawyer fees are at least partially a US phenomenon.
- caycep 13y agoHonestly, I don't think Apple so much as broke the law as they lost out on some lobbying/regulating play where Amazon got the DoJ to investigate for agency models, as opposed to Apple getting the DoJ to investigate Amazon for predatory pricing. In this case, I think anything is fair play.
- smackfu 13y agoWonder how much Apple paid their lawyers to write this brief and if they actually come out ahead even if they win.