By Joe Palazzolo

In today’s paper, Gina Chon and I wrote about a case in Delware Chancery Court in which a judge awarded $300 million in fees to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. We noted it was unusually high. But how unusual? (We speak only of the size of the award, not of the percentage of the judgement the fee represents, which, in this case, is 15%.)

Lawyers we spoke with say the fee appears to be the largest awarded in what’s known as a shareholder derivative lawsuit, in which shareholders sue on behalf of a company, and ranks among the largest in the broader context of securities litigation.

They pointed to three other high fee awards in shareholder derivatives, but they are picayune compared to the $300 million in the Delaware case, which was filed by shareholders in 2004.

-In 2005, Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison agreed to pay $22 million in attorneys’ fees as part of settlement of a shareholder lawsuit that also called for him to make a $100-million donation to charities.

-In 2010, drug maker Pfizer settled a derivative lawsuit led by the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Pension and Relief Fund of Baton Rouge, La., for roughly $75 million. About $23 million of that went to plaintiffs attorneys.

-In 2011, in another case in Delaware, Chancellor Leo Strine approved a $90 million settlement of AIG shareholder suits and awarded plaintiffs lawyers $21 million in fees.

Big fee awards are more common in class actions. But relatively speaking (albeit an apples-to-oranges comparison), the $300 million fee award ranks among the highest ever in securities litigation, according to the National Association of Legal Fee Analysis.

Only plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees in class actions against Enron ($688 million), Tyco ($492 million) and WorldCom ($336 million) were larger.

The Delaware case concerned a deal for a Mexico mining company. In 2004, Grupo Mexico proposed selling its 99.15% interest in Minera Mexico to Southern Peru Copper (now Southern Copper Corp.) for about $3 billion in Southern Peru shares. The value of the Southern Peru shares rose to $3.7 billion by the time the transaction closed in April 2005.

In a lawsuit filed on behalf of Southern Peru shareholders, law firms Prickett, Jones & Elliott and Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check alleged that Southern Peru overpaid for Minera.

The case went to trial in June before Chancellor Leo Strine. In an October ruling, he deemed the transaction “manifestly unfair” and awarded a judgment for Southern Peru that, with interest, now adds up to about $2 billion.