A US judge has awarded Kirkland & Ellis and one other US firm $10m (£6m) in legal fees in a dispute over an outsourcing agreement, reports The Am Law Daily.

The dispute stemmed from an outsourcing deal signed by tech company Metavante and Emigrant Savings Bank in 2004. Metavante had accused Emigrant of breaching the deal, before Emigrant filed counter-claims that eventually pushed the case into federal court.

The original outsourcing agreement said that in the event of litigation between the two parties, the losing side must pay the winning side's legal bills.

A federal judge ruled in favour of Metavante at trial earlier this year, but Emigrant objected to Metavante's huge legal bills, claiming in part that they were unreasonable.

The judge rejected that argument on Friday (27 November) and ordered Emigrant to pay the whole $10m legal tab to Kirkland and Wisconsin firm Kravit Hovel & Krawczyk – significantly more than the $6m (£3.6m) in damages the firms had won on behalf of Metavante.

Emigrant has appealed the initial $6m damages award to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and has turned to David Boies of Boies Schiller & Flexner for advice on the appeal.

The Am Law Daily is the website of The American Lawyer, Legal Week's US sister title.

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