Steve Ferguson v. the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

── Steve Ferguson v. the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago ── Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida Date: May 20, 2026 Category: General Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida Opinion filed May 20, 2026. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D25-1088 Lower Tribunal No. 04-11813-CA-01 ________________ Steve Ferguson, Appellant, vs. The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, et al., Appellees. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Reemberto Diaz, Judge. The Law Office of Stephen James Binhak, P.L.L.C., and Stephen J. Binhak; León Cosgrove Jiménez LLP, and Scott B. Cosgrove, for appellant. White & Case LLP, and Raoul G. Cantero and James N. Robinson and Ryan Ulloa and W. Dylan Fay, for appellees. Before SCALES, C.J., and FERNANDEZ and BOKOR, JJ. BOKOR, J.  Steve Ferguson, one of numerous defendants in a long-running RICO action brought by the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (the Republic), appeals a judgment awarding the Republic over $17 million in attorney fees and costs after it prevailed in the underlying suit. Ferguson alleges that the court abused its discretion by awarding several categories of fees and costs that he claims represented unreasonable fee rates and hours, cumulative or unrelated work, and improper overhead expenses. He also alleges that the court improperly admitted the underlying billing data under the business records exception. We affirm as to the fee award but reverse and remand for additional findings as to costs. BACKGROUND Ferguson was found liable in 2023 for civil fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and civil RICO violations related to his misappropriation of public funds for construction of the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad and Tobago. Throughout the litigation, the Republic was represented first by Sequor Law and then by White & Case after Sequor was disqualified in May 2022.1 1 The extensive procedural history of the underlying case spans over 20 years of litigation and has been amply recounted by this court in other final and nonfinal appeals, including Ferguson’s prior merits appeal. See Ferguson v. Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, 422 So. 3d 717, 721 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025) (Logue, J., concurring). 2  After the final judgment, the Republic moved for attorneys’ fees and costs, supporting its claim with an expert affidavit from a retired circuit judge, who recommended a total fee award of $17,787,593.78 for both law firms. Ferguson proffered a competing affidavit from his own fee expert, who recommended a reduced lodestar of $3,454,992.67. The Republic’s expert compiled the fee amounts from each firm’s invoices into Excel spreadsheets with individual rows for each time entry for which the Republic was seeking fees. The Republic’s expert also attested that he reviewed each individual time entry and made reductions on a line- by-line basis. Ferguson’s expert also reviewed each individual time entry but sorted his recommended reductions into broad categories of objectionable fees and reduced the award across each category, with only a selection of individual examples cited in the affidavit. And while Ferguson alleges that his expert made annotated versions of Excel spreadsheets containing specific objections to individual time entries, he concedes that these records were not entered into evidence. The underlying billing data, including timesheets and invoices, was entered into evidence over Ferguson’s hearsay objection. After a hearing, the trial court largely accepted the Republic’s fee expert’s methodology and his proposed attorney fee calculations, awarding