Mariana Dam litigation: Retainer dispute
Class action firm Pogust Goodhead (PG) is seeking a court declaration that would deny the legality of the notice purporting to terminate its retainer for the Mariana Dam litigation.
Earlier this month, Bailey Glasser International – a new joint venture between an English law firm run by former PG staff and US firm Bailey & Glasser – announced that the client committee had decided to change solicitors for the biggest group action in English legal history.
The committee is not a body appointed by the court. PG said the committee, “a group of 17 members appointed by the previous management and whose identities are kept confidential”, did not have the authority, acting on its own, to transfer the claims of hundreds of thousands of other people who have individual contracts with the firm.
It has now applied to the High Court seeking declarations that the client committee did not have the contractual authority to terminate the retainer or direct a change in legal representation or to stop PG from instructing Quinn Emanuel and new counsel for the damages stage of the litigation, as it announced in June.
PG also wants a declaration that it was entitled to disregard instructions from the committee not to appoint Quinn Emanuel.
A PG spokesman said: “Clients are being encouraged to walk away from an established litigation structure on the representation that they can simply move to another firm with no material consequences.
“Yet those decisions may affect the very contracts, funding, insurance protections and litigation timetable that have enabled this case to reach a 22-week damages trial that is now only months away.
“We are concerned that this proposition is being presented as settled fact when the validity of the purported transfer is disputed and is now before the court.
“If clients are being encouraged to take potentially irreversible steps on the basis of materially incomplete information, that is a matter of serious concern and speaks directly to the protection of clients and the integrity of this litigation.”
A spokesman for Humphries Kerstetter, the City law firm representing the client committee, said: “The client committee was established to represent the collective interests of the claimants and has broad decision-making powers over the conduct of the litigation, including providing instructions to the lawyers and taking the steps necessary for the continuation or resolution of the case.
“The committee acted within those contractual powers, repeatedly raised serious concerns about the conduct of the litigation, including through a formal notice, and sought independent legal advice before concluding that a change of representation had become unavoidable.
“The committee remains fully confident in the decision it took to protect the interests of the people it represents.”
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