Attorney Fee Distribution Upheld After Anticompetitive Tying Class Settlement

( April 16, 2026, 7:57 AM EDT) -- SAN FRANCISCO — The court-appointed lead class counsel in a more than decade-long lawsuit accusing Sutter Health of monopolizing northern California hospital markets to raise prices and decrease competition had the authority to allocate attorney fees to multiple firms following a $228.5 million settlement approved in November and did so in a “reasonable and fair” manner, a federal magistrate judge in California ruled, denying a motion by one of the firms to enforce the order awarding fees....