U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert W. Lehrburger issued the decision and order on the fee application following a January ruling that Interamerican had intentionally destroyed electronically stored information, warranting sanctions including an adverse inference instruction and reimbursement of fees incurred to litigate the spoliation.
PDV USA sought $1.90 million in fees, comprising $1.85 million from lead counsel Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP for about 1,800 hours and $52,697.75 from local Florida counsel Jones Day for 65.2 hours.
The court found the requested rates for Wilkie Farr partners Jeffrey Korn and Michael Gottlieb modestly exceeded the range of rates found to be reasonable for similar big-firm partners in Manhattan, applying a 15 percent reduction to their hourly charges.
For Wilkie Farr associates and paralegals, the court identified an "evidentiary gap" because PDV USA failed to submit biographical information regarding their years of experience or qualifications, despite Interamerican’s objections.
The court applied a 15 percent across-the-board reduction to the rates for all Wilkie Farr associates and paralegals to account for this lack of documentation, noting that courts may reduce rates when a party fails to provide necessary information to assess reasonableness.
Interamerican also challenged the hours billed, pointing to overstaffing, duplicative reviews, and vague entries, such as 19 hours spent by three attorneys to draft a three-page letter motion to extend a stay.
Judge Lehrburger agreed that the billing records reflected "excess, duplication, and vagueness," but declined to conduct an item-by-item reduction, instead applying a 15 percent across-the-board cut to the hours charged by Wilkie Farr.
Jones Day’s rates were reduced by 20 percent because PDV USA provided no evidence of the experience of its Florida attorneys or customary rates in the Southern District of Florida, where the local counsel practiced.
The court rejected Interamerican’s argument that Jones Day’s block-billing warranted a reduction, finding the entries sufficiently descriptive to allow for a meaningful review of the time spent.
The final award of $1.37 million reflects a 30 percent total reduction on the Wilkie Farr portion of the request (15 percent for rates and 15 percent for hours) and a 20 percent reduction on the Jones Day portion.
The litigation involves allegations that Interamerican and its principal, former U.S. Congressman David Rivera, used a consulting agreement to cover illegal efforts to broker an oil deal with Venezuela’s Maduro regime, leading to the spoliation of emails and text messages.
Rivera has been the subject of a federal criminal prosecution in Florida involving the same consulting agreement, and PDV USA incurred costs pursuing motion practice in the Southern District of Florida to recover evidence from him.