Thirteen years ago the shareholder litigation firms Brower Piven and Harwood Feffer worked together to tee up plaintiffs for an investor class action that ultimately settled for $586 million. But the relationship has since soured, judging by a new lawsuit in which Brower Piven claims Harwood Feffer stiffed the firm out of about $170,000 in referral fees.
In a complaint filed on Aug. 19 in U.S. district court in Manhattan, Brower Piven alleges that it referred more than two dozen investors to Harwood Feffer for a case known as In Re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation, only to have Harwood Feffer name partner Richard Harwood back out of a verbal agreement to hand over a cut of his court-awarded attorney fees. Brower Piven and the law firm’s name partner, Charles Piven, brought the case against Harwood as well as his firm.
