LAST SIGNATURE

The last required signature on the Revised Settlement Agreement has been provided after approval by a bankruptcy court.

The preliminary approval hearing is scheduled for January 22nd.

All signatures are obtained, but one. That is 35 or more publishers, 16 defendants and the plaintiffs. One defendant is in a bankruptcy reorganization and it must obtain court approval to sign the agreement. The approval is expected without problem. It will take about 3-4 weeks to obtain that approval, but that will hopefully not delay proceeding.

Soon (matter of days) plaintiffs will request preliminary approval from Judge Daniels. Once obtained (expected to be matter of weeks) the process of notice will start. Then in a matter of months there will be a hearing on final approval.

I will try to predict time lines before too long, but a rough estimate is that it will be approximately a year from now before claim payments go out.

Once preliminary approval is obtained I will conduct inquiries with the class and individual members with the aim of preparing for the process of claim review and defense challenges to claims. The review and defense challenge will not start until after final approval (and the passage of 30 additional days to see that there is no further appeal). But many of the issues that are likely or certain to be presented are foreshadowed by the initial review that has already taken place and by the negotiations over the last year or more. Thus, the effort will be to anticipate those issues and try to have their resolution take as short a time as possible.

Continuing last minute changes to documents. While the plaintiffs' side is pretty quick with changes the defense not so much. Supposedly getting publishers is completed.

The delays against predictions by the defense, recent ones are shown below, are so systematic that it's hard not to wonder if there has been something else going on beside signing up publishers.

Could be in a day or two, or could be longer - impossible to say. Some of the things, one in particular in the last couple of days, came entirely out of the blue.

8-2-31. Michael Boni to the court. Finalized Revised Settlement Agreement and Exhibits, including forms of notice. Defense group trying to get support from important publishers. We are told this should take several more weeks. It is everyone’s intention to file for preliminary approval by the end of September. [WE DID THINK DOCUMENTS WERE FINAL, BUT THERE HAVE BEEN ENDLESS CHANGES SINCE THEN, COMING MOSTLY FROM THE DEFENSE BUT SOME FROM THE PLAINTIFFS, AND THERE WERE TWO MISSING EXHIBITS EVEN THEN. HOW THE DEFENSE COULD HAVE PROJECTED “SEVERAL MORE WEEKS” IS UNKNOWABLE – THE LAST PUBLISHER WAS REPORTED OBTAINED LATE LAST WEEK]

9-5-13. Chalmers to the court. We are still aiming for September 30^th. Defense says they are working for that goal and will know more in two weeks or sooner.

9-20-13. Sims (Defense) to the court. We’re still  working for September 30^th.

9-30-13. Sims to the court. We’re still working hard. Expect to file by October 15^th.

Continuing delays while last minute details, mostly related to dealing with individual publishers, are worked out by the defense. The lawyer for the defense responsible for these activities has been furiously busy with other matters in recent weeks and now says that conflict is cleared. All plaintiffs' (class) counsel have pressed as hard as possible to conclude it.

Last minute document revision issues slowed completion late last week and early this week. Last advice from last week was that one publisher was still needed, and that has not yet been clarified.

Activity this week is consistent with possibility that settlement documents will be signed next week. There are approximately 30 to 50 entities/people who have to sign off, even if they don't sign the actual agreement, such as publishers and insurance companies. Other than the Holocaust survivors class action settlement, this is likely one of the most complicated class actions and settlements in history. Normally there is one defendant (consumer, securities, and labor cases); here there are the major databases, a number of named publishers, and then all the publishers who improperly put freelance content into the databases.

Another delay

Yesterday the Defense advised the Court of a new prediction for completion of the settlement: October 15th. They are involved in seeking commitments from publishers to pay a portion of each claim. If they proceed with the settlement, which I expect, the databases have to pay for any publisher who doesn't pay its share.

The delay is a matter of choice for the databases. They can delay until they get as much publisher participation as they want -- and they can decide they have enough at any time. If they were faced by any sort of deadline that threatened them with substantial costs, primarily attorneys' fees, they would  be motivated to decide sooner. Also, the settlement gets cheaper for them by the day, as they are not paying any interest to class members. There is minimal lawyer work happening now, as far as I know. The settlement documents are done, and have been for months.

Once the settlement is signed (about 15 signatures) it goes to the court for preliminary approval. Normally that will happen fairly quickly, within two weeks. Then a Final Approval Hearing will be scheduled approximately 4 - 5 months later. Notice of the settlement will be made. Objectons will be permitted.

If approved, and not appealed, a period of claim review and challenge by the defense side will begin. That process, and the resolution of disputes about claim validity, will take months, I'd expect 3-4 minimum. Then payments will be made.

There has been one level of claims review conducted by the Claims Administrator, and some claims deemed ineligiible based on that review. Claimants will be notified of those and have an opportunity to respond. That will happen during the second round of claims review, which is primarily by the defense, not the Claims Administrator.

There will be no new claims under the Revised Settlement. The only participants will be those who already filed claims. The compensation for A and B claims does not change. The compensation for C claims will increase in an amount that will not be known until the final claims review is completed because it is partly a function of the amount of valid C claims. But, it will be no less than approximately a 20% increase. There will be no reduction of C compensation under any circumstances.

At some point in the process the Claims Administrator will undertake to obtain updated contact information for claimants. It is presently premature as the Administrator doesn't get paid until there is an approved settlement.

Going forward I will be handling all issues that arise concerning C claims, meaning primarily challenges to the validity of those claims. As of now the claims for A and B works that have initially been found eligible is for 8,040 works. There are initially eligible claims for 306,000 C works. There were something over 3000 claims, meaning claims for one or more works. At this time roughly 2600 of those claims have at least one eligible work. Individual claims range from one work, to individual claims for thousands of works. Aside from the 314,000 works currently considered eligible there were many, many thousands deemed ineligible in the initial review.

Because the potential amount of work in dealing with C claims issues is so enormous, simply based on the number of works, I will start to work on anticipated issues more or less immediately. With that in mind I invite any one who submitted a claim for more than one thousand unregistered works to contact me by email. I will later invite others to contact me, but with a potential for more than 2500 claimants, I'm going to try and break it down. After contact, and when I've confirmed your identity, I can review your claim and begin to anticipate some of the possible issues. I have a report which lists every claim, every work and information of on whether it is eligible or why it was deemed ineligible. Some months ago I cross checked a very small number of claimed works deemed ineligible and found a few mistakes -- not many but some.

STARTING 9-30.

Starting Monday September 30th, I will begin to address, frequently, whether there is a settlement, the current expectations for a settlement, the reasons for delay and other information. Class members may send me questions at chalmerscd@gmail.com. Your identity will be kept confidential. You will have to use the name under which you filed a claim.