A Chicago federal judge has ordered Japanese pachinko billionaire Kazuo Okada to pay his former law firm Bartlit Beck $50 million in legal fees plus interest, upholding a 2019 arbitration award in favor of the litigation boutique.
Okada, now represented by Dentons, had argued the award should be vacated because he and his counsel didn’t attend the proceeding in which it was decided. But U.S. District Judge John Kness ruled Friday that Okada wasn’t at proceedings because he had refused to attend at the last minute, not because the panel failed to accommodate him.
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