Landmark Tobacco Settlement: Quebec Lawyers to Pocket $630M in Fees

According to a report in the National Post on December 14th, lawyers representing tens of thousands of Quebecois in two class action lawsuits against three major tobacco manufacturers will seek fees exceeding $900 million to compensate for their work on this landmark case spanning several decades.

Legal representatives for the class action lawsuit have stated that the court has received the application documents requesting approval to send notices to class action members informing them that the compensation sought involves over 175,000 hours of work.

The day before this action was announced, lawyers stated that the company's creditors, including representatives of the class action plaintiffs, had approved the settlement proposal. The proposal will require several companies to pay a total of 3.25 billion Canadian dollars in compensation.

More than $4 billion CAD has been allocated to the lawsuit plaintiffs, with the requested payment amount from the plaintiffs' lawyers accounting for 22% of this sum.

The proposal announced in October this year also plans for JTI-Macdonald Corporation, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. to pay over 24 billion Canadian dollars to provinces and territories in Canada, and over 2.5 billion Canadian dollars to Canadian smokers who did not participate in the lawsuit.

The proposal still requires approval from the court before implementation, and it is expected that a motion for approval of legal fees will be included in the hearing scheduled for the end of January.

The spokesperson stated that the total fees requested by the lawyers in the class action lawsuit amount to $906,180,000 CAD before taxes, including tens of millions of dollars in expenses incurred during the litigation process that began in the late 1990s, as well as fees for managing future claims processes.

Lawyer André Lesperance, representing some Quebec plaintiffs, stated in a declaration that...

The requested fees not only reflect the extraordinary scope of work and results achieved, but also demonstrate the lawyer and their team's unwavering dedication. They tirelessly and actively fought against the Canadian tobacco industry, bearing the costs and risks of litigation without any guarantee of payment. This commitment is purely driven by the pursuit of fair and just compensation for victims and their families.