A federal judge has rejected approval of a class action settlement that drew an unusual objection from the U.S. Justice Department, but one that it withdrew.

U.S. District Judge Renée Bumb in New Jersey found on Tuesday that “many fundamental and important questions remain unanswered” about the settlement, which gave credits to customers of an online wine retailer while awarding $1.2 million to plaintiffs lawyers. Her ruling comes even as the Justice Department, which challenged the deal along with 10 other individual objectors and 19 attorneys general, did “an about-face” in supporting the settlement after lawyers made several changes.

“How can a court determine, with a reasonable amount of certainty, that the proposed settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate under [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 23(e), when it has many unanswered questions?” Bumb wrote. “It cannot, and must not.”

“In sum,” she concluded, “too many questions remain, and without answers, the Court is unequipped to approve the parties' settlement.”

A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment.

“The Court's decision is unfortunate since this was an excellent settlement as evidenced by the huge class participation rate and by the fact that DOJ, the AGs, and even the majority of the professional objectors, could find no fault in the deal as presented for Final Approval,” plaintiffs attorney James Cecchi, of Roseland, New Jersey-based Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello, wrote in an email.

Suzanne Schiller, a partner at Manko Gold Katcher Fox in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, who represented the defendant, Ashburn Corp., which does business as Wines 'Til Sold Out, declined to comment.

Three plaintiffs sued in 2016, claiming to represent a class of consumers who alleged that Wines 'Til Sold Out falsely advertised wine at discounted prices based on original prices that never existed or that the retailer inflated. Bumb dismissed most of the claims. She granted preliminary approval of the settlement on Nov. 16.

Under the original deal, class members would get credits toward future wine purchases of between 20 cents to $2.25 per bottle for a total settlement value of $10.8 million. Lawyers, on the other hand, would get $1.7 million.

After lawyers filed a motion for final approval, the DOJ filed a statement of interest on Feb. 16 in the case, claiming the settlement provided “extremely limited value” while giving a “windfall payment” to class counsel. The statement, filed by Joshua Rothman, a trial attorney at the Consumer Protection Branch in the DOJ's Civil Division in Washington, D.C., said the credits were akin to coupons that the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 discouraged.

The move came days after former Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand suggested in a speech at a Federalist Society luncheon in Washington, D.C., that the department would ramp up its review of fairness in class action settlements. CAFA requires that certain officials, including the U.S. attorney general, get notifications of class action settlements. Although the DOJ has intervened in settlements only a handful of times, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a stronger stance against class actions.

The state attorneys general, which included Arizona and Texas, filed an amicus brief outlining similar concerns about the credits. They noted that the settlement required class members to purchase large amounts of wine within a year in order to use credits applied per bottle.

Plaintiffs lawyers made some changes: They added a $500,000 cash fund for unused credits, reduced their fee request to $1.2 million and lengthened the period of time in which credits could be used to 18 months.

On March 27, the DOJ notified the court that it had changed its mind about its objection because plaintiffs lawyers, with whom its representatives had met earlier that month, “substantially improved the overall structure and value of the proposed settlement in response to the United States' and others' concerns.”

“Each of these revisions represents a material improvement to the proposed settlement—providing more actual value to class consumers,” Rothman wrote.

In Tuesday's order, Bumb wrote that the DOJ's “about-face” had no “helpful explanation (indeed, none at all).”

Burt Rublin of Ballard Spahr said that while the federal government's renewed involvement in class action settlements was notable, so was the court's ultimate decision.

“While DOJ's participation in the class settlement approval process is guaranteed to shine a bright spotlight on the challenged settlement and lead to increased scrutiny by the Court, the Wines case demonstrates that courts will not necessarily rubber-stamp the position taken by DOJ,” he said.

Among Bumb's concerns: The cash fund was possibly insufficient, the settlement was “largely devoice of any numbers” and many class members had purchased wine that was different from that of the plaintiffs who brought the case. When asked to explain, lawyers said both sides said they wanted to have those claims released as part of the settlement.

“This answer is not only inadequate, but unsettling to the Court,” Bumb wrote. “Without such explanation, the Court is deprived of the opportunity to probe the reason for doing so: do the lawyers win, and the class loses, nor not?”