Following trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the judge ruled in favor of the defense, discarding claims of excessive fees. Retained by Ropes & Gray The plaintiff alleged that Metropolitan West Asset Management LLC (MetWest) charged excessive fees, and that those fees did not meet the “arm’s-length bargaining” standard under Section 36(b) of the Investment Company Act. Defense counsel retained John Coates of Harvard Law School and Cornerstone Research to evaluate MetWest’s role as advisor to the Metropolitan West Total Return Bond Fund (the Fund) and to rebut the plaintiff’s experts’ arguments on all fronts. The judge cited Professor Coates extensively, stating that the plaintiff’s expert’s testimony was “outweighed by Defendant’s contradictory evidence

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