Welcome to Critical Mass, Law.com's weekly briefing on class actions and mass torts. I'm Max Mitchell in Philadelphia filling in for our usual columnist Amanda Bronstad.

Banking and tech companies topped the week's litigation news, with websites behaving badly and attorneys netting $300 million in a blockbuster antitrust suit. A closely watched antitrust case against Allergan also settled, and plaintiffs firms are finding that experts who can speak on the subject of erectile dysfunction may be few and far-between.

You can contact me with feedback at [email protected] or look me up on Twitter @MMitchellTLI.

You may also reach out to Amanda through email to [email protected], or on Twitter: @abronstadlaw.

Critical Mass will be taking next week off for Thanksgiving. We'll be back on Nov. 28. Enjoy your holiday!

Making Bank

Even though the federal judge overseeing the case shaved three-and-a half percentage points off the fee request, attorneys for the blockbuster $2.3 billionsettlement over price-fixing by banks in the foreign market were awarded more than $300 million in fees.

My colleague Colby Hamilton, who covered the story, noted that the litigation involved several hundred attorneys working over the course of five years, resulting in what the plaintiffs claim is the third largest antitrust class action settlement in history.

Class counsel, co-led by attorneys from Scott + Scott and Hausfeld LLP, had previously been awarded $22.5 million for litigation expenses. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield of the Southern District of New York granted counsel 13 percent of the settlement fund for attorney fees—which was less than the 16.51 percent sought. Schofield noted that two class members objected to the proposed fee as being “grossly excessive,” while requesting a fee of no more than 8 percent.

'Wiretapped' Website?

Outdoor apparel company Moosejaw was sued Friday for allegedly “wiretapping” computers that visit its website. The suit includes claims that the company and its databroker, NaviStone Inc., “secretly embedded” code on Moosejaw.com that allowed the companies to “observe visitors' keystrokes, mouse clicks and other electronic communications in real time,” regardless of whether a purchase was made.

The complaint, written by Timothy Fisher of the boutique Bursor & Fisher on behalf of a California plaintiff, alleges that the companies violated the Golden State's privacy law by embedding the code, which further allowed the companies to “de-anonymize and identify” people visiting the site by unveiling their addresses, names and browsing habits.

David Bertoni of Brann & Isaacson, counsel for for NaviStone, said the factual allegations in the complaint didn't match up to the company's cyber-practices.

“Most of what is stated in the complaint is totally false,” Bertoni said in an email. “For example, NaviStone does not log keystrokes, does not collect form field information, does not scan anyone's devices, and does not create a backdoor to collect personally identifiable information. NaviStone has faced this same law firm four times for claims of wiretapping, and all of those frivolous claims were dismissed with prejudice.”

It's worth noting that the litigation isn't the first time that Bursor & Fisher has handled online privacy suits. It was previously appointed as interim class counsel in the nationwide class action against Facebook over the company's alleged collection of user call and text histories without consent, and represented plaintiffs against Hearst Communications over allegations that it violated Michigan's privacy law by selling subscriber information without consent.

Banking on Appeal

At least eight objectors have appealed the $142 million class action settlement over Wells Fargo's unauthorized accounts scandal.

Amanda's story says their complaints include the $21.3 million in attorney fees that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria awarded to lead class counsel at Keller Rohrback. That amount is excessive, objectors argue, given that federal regulators did most of the work. They also have gripes about variations of state law, citing the Ninth Circuit's Jan. 23 opinion in In re Hyundai and Kia Fuel Economy Litigation.

An interesting side note: After granting approval, Chhabria issued an order for Keller Rohrback to provide a “notice of completion of duties” before getting any attorney fees.

Eye Catching

In 2016, Hartig Drug Co.'s claims that Allergan tried to suppress generic versions of its eye-care products seemed to have been defeated, but on Tuesday a federal judge in Delaware gave final approval to a $9 million class action settlement in the litigation.

The ruling, from Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Bataillon, brought an end to nearly four and a half years of litigation in the product-hopping case, which had been closely watched by the pharmaceutical industry, my colleague Tom McParlandwrote.

The case had previously been dismissed, but in 2016 an appeals court revived the claims.

Hartig, an indirect purchaser that bought the drugs from AmerisourceBergen, sued in 2014, alleging that Allergan had conspired to muscle planned generics out of the market and sell its eye drops at an inflated price. The case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, but, on appeal, it caught the attention of some of the country's top pharmaceutical companies.

Hartig's attorneys, which include lawyers from Hausfeld and Prickett, Jones & Elliott, have asked for $3 million in attorney fees for litigating the case.

Erectile Experts

Apparently, it's very difficult to find experts who've studied whether prescription medications that treat erectile dysfunction also cause melanoma. Plaintiffs' firms in the multidistrict litigation over Viagra and Cialis (Cory Watson and Robins Kaplan) filed a motion to disqualify an expert for Eli Lilly who happened to have a “confidential consulting relationship” with them two years ago.

In a Thursday response, Eli Lilly's counsel (Covington & Burling) opposed the disqualification, and then accused the plaintiffs of having “substantially cut and pasted” a May 10 motion that it filed with Pfizer attorneys (Williams & Connolly) to remove a plaintiffs' expert on similar grounds. They withdrew that motion after plaintiffs agreed not to use the expert.

Here's more you need to know:

➤➤ California Burning: As California reels from another devastating season of wildfires, plaintiffs firms, including Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, are preparing to sue Pacific Gas and Electric Co. over the catastrophic damage caused by the Camp Fire, according to my colleague Cheryl Miller.

➤➤ Cyber Schooling: The judge overseeing a half dozen class action lawsuits targeting Facebook Inc. with claims related to a data breach affecting 50 millionusers has asked the lawyers to give him a tutorial on data breaches, the dark weband all things cyber-related. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California, who makes a regular habit of asking lawyers to help him get up to speed on the underlying technology, has set on Jan. 9 as the date for the courtroom tutorial.

➤➤ Fingerprinting: The New York Civil Liberties Union, in conjunction with Morrison & Foerster and the National Center for Youth Law, has launched a nationwide proposed class action claiming that a Trump administration policy on fingerprint-based background checks for immigrant household members has led to the highest level in history of migrant children being locked up in government custody away from their parents.