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August 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on Aug. 13 published an ad hoc committee’s decision denying in full the Argentine Republic’s application to annul a split tribunal’s award against it worth more than $23 million in favor of Austrian investment entities whose gaming license investment was expropriated and ordering Argentina to pay more than $1.2 million in attorney fees, expenses and arbitration costs because it raised “duplicative” arguments “which could never have been sustainable.”
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August 14, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida federal judge agreed to stay the enforcement of more than $1.3 million in Rule 11 sanctions while attorneys that represented a plaintiff school entity and the school itself appeal the order; sanctions were entered after the plaintiff school continued to pursue nationwide trademark damages for several months in 2023 after discovery failed to produce supporting evidence and engaged in what the judge previously called “five-and-a-half years of abusive litigation” in a dispute over virtual schooling trademarks while some of the attorneys appeal the sanctions.
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August 14, 2026
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court panel reversed and remanded a lower court’s order denying a motion by the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA) to enforce a settlement agreement and granting the insureds’ motion to enforce a settlement agreement in a dispute over coverage for purported water damage, finding that the lower court erred in requiring that FIGA “pay the entire settlement amount,” which included the attorney fee portion.
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August 14, 2026
ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s award of attorney fees to a debtor’s lawyer, finding the debtor failed to show the bankruptcy court erred in allowing attorney fees to be paid from undisbursed funds held by the bankruptcy trustee after the debtor’s Chapter 13 bankruptcy case was dismissed.
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August 14, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Supreme Court overturned an appellate court’s order reversing a trial court’s denial of attorney fees to a contractor in its subcontractor’s suit against it for breach of contract after the contractor refused to pay the subcontractor for its work because it claimed that the subcontractor’s work was defective, finding that the contractor failed to identify the basis for its request for attorney fees.
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August 14, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated an attorney fee award and remanded for further proceeding, finding that a lower court did not determine whether attorney fees a company sought from a guarantor were part of an underlying loan and, therefore, had to be allocated under an intercreditor agreement governing proceeds from the sale of the borrower’s assets.
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August 14, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s award of attorney fees in favor of a consumer credit reporting agency after it successfully moved for dismissal of a consumer’s third complaint against it for allegedly reporting false and derogatory information regarding his bankruptcy on his credit report, finding that the lower court properly awarded fees under Texas state law.
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August 13, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A more than decade-long class case against Grubhub Inc. and Grubhub Holdings Inc. (together, Grubhub) by drivers who alleged that they were unlawfully classified as independent contractors was settled for $24.75 million, according to an order by a federal judge in California granting final settlement approval and partially granting a motion for attorney fees and costs.
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August 13, 2026
CHICAGO — Homebuyers who sued a real estate broker trade association and three real estate franchisors for allegedly conspiring over commission rates have reached class settlements with two of the franchisors for a total of $28.5 million, according to orders of settlement filed in a federal court in Illinois.
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August 12, 2026
LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Supreme Court issued an opinion affirming a lower court’s finding that the purchasers of property was not owed attorney fees from the trust that sold the property when the seller refused to defend their title in a third-party quiet title suit because the purchasers successfully defended against the quiet title suit.
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August 12, 2026
LAS VEGAS — An insurance company objects to a magistrate judge’s decision not to sanction counsel for nearly a dozen artificial intelligence-generated errors, and the defendants tell the federal court in the Nevada breach of contract case that their counsel withdrew the filings and took steps to ensure that the errors would not be repeated.
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August 11, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s confirmation of an arbitrator’s final award allocating contingent attorney fees to four law firms that represented a military equipment company in an underlying action, finding that the firm that appealed failed to establish fraudulent inducement or duress.
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August 11, 2026
CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Illinois federal judge’s summary judgment against a plaintiff-appellant technology company, holding that there was no evidence on the record to support its claims that another entity misappropriated copyrighted source code for a coin-counting machine the plaintiff-appellant developed for a banking entity based in the United Kingdom.
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August 06, 2026
NEW YORK — Stating that an insurance exchange “should not be permitted to escape the economic consequences of its conduct,” a group of intervening reinsurers asked a New York federal court to award approximately $2 million in attorney fees and costs arising from the exchange’s failed attempt to disqualify an attorney who previously represented the exchange from serving as the reinsurers’ party-appointed arbitrator in a reinsurance dispute, contending that the exchange violated a hold-harmless agreement in which it promised not to sue the arbitrator.
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August 04, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Saying in part that the key provision a retirement plan sponsor invoked “does not authorize an award of attorney’s fees against counsel,” a South Carolina federal judge on Aug. 3 declined to order the plaintiff’s counsel to pay $1,133,428.61 to cover the legal fees and nontaxable costs the sponsor said it incurred in successfully defending itself against an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case focused on recordkeeping fees.
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August 03, 2026
ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Iowa federal judge’s decision to cancel a plaintiff-appellant manufacturer’s trademark covering a brightly colored garden hose because the color was purely functional; the panel also affirmed the judge’s award of more than $3.21 million in attorney fees to the defendant-appellee entity because the plaintiff-appellant’s conduct both before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the District Court made the case exceptional.
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August 03, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Resolving challenges to several rulings that arose from a suit in which an employer prevailed over the parties that alleged that it owed multiemployer fund contributions, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment and expert exclusion decisions but said it lacks jurisdiction regarding an attorney fee ruling that did not set the amount owed to the employer and, therefore, is not yet ripe for appeal; one panel member filed a concurrence concerning the expert exclusion.
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July 30, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A partially split Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 29 affirmed both attorney fees against plaintiff entities over their unsuccessful copyright and trademark claims in a dispute over fudge and affirmed their jury victory on trade secret claims, holding that there was enough evidence in the record for a jury to find that a fudge recipe derived economic value from remaining secret.
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July 30, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc after vacating for a second time a $3.7 million fee award for class counsel that is part of a class settlement valued at $27 million in a lawsuit alleging that BMW of North America LLC knowingly manufactured vehicles equipped with defective engines.
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July 29, 2026
ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida federal judge on July 29 granted a Singaporean agricultural company’s motion for sanctions against a Florida company and ordered the Florida company to pay attorney fees and costs incurred litigating its “frivolous” counterpetition to vacate a Refined Sugar Association (RSA) panel’s arbitral award worth more than $150,000 with interest, which the court found was filed “without any objectively reasonable legal basis.”
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July 29, 2026
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate panel affirmed an attorney fee and costs award worth more than $65,000 in favor of an attorney who was sued by a seller in a failed real estate deal and ordered the pro se appellant to show cause why she should not be sanctioned by being barred from making further pro se filings after finding that her brief was filled with “nonsense” arguments and “legal double talk,” signs of what the panel said is the “growing problem” in Florida of pro se litigants using AI-generated briefs in appeals.
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July 21, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Despite objections, a California federal judge granted final approval in consolidated litigation to a $47.5 million class action settlement between eight named plaintiffs and a health plan that resolves claims brought after the health plan was accused of installing third-party trackers on its website and mobile apps to capture user information.
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July 20, 2026
PHOENIX — An Arizona court struck a brief and ordered the pro se appellant in a dispute over a mother’s estate to pay his sibling’s attorney fees after finding that the opening brief contained six inaccurate citations.
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July 17, 2026
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A split Maryland Supreme Court reversed lower courts’ decisions awarding a nonprofit organization half of its initially requested attorney fees in its Maryland Public Information Act case against Frederick County, finding that the initial trial court order did not follow the established standard for determining attorney fee awards.
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July 17, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel recalculated the attorney fee and cost award a lower court awarded to a former RV center employee in a sexual harassment and retaliation case against the center and certain of its employees. Among other things, the panel agreed with the hourly rate used by the lower court and its deduction of hours spent on claims against a previously settled defendant but disagreed with its deduction of hours billed for pretrial work.