WASHINGTON, January 7 (Sputnik) — A Detroit court will soon begin collecting comments from lawyers and other parties involved to decide whether the over $170 million cost for legal consulting fees being charged to the city are reasonable, but no final hearing date has been set yet, a spokesperson for the US District Court in Michigan Rod Hansen told Sputnik on Tuesday.
"He [Detroit Bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes] will rule on the fees himself… we don't know when, it probably will be sometime early February," Hansen said.
Rhodes rescued Detroit from bankruptcy in November 2014 by cutting $7 billion of the city's $18 billion debt and investing $1.7 billion of it in the Detroit's public services. The price tag that the city spent on services represents the cost of the largest city in US history to declare bankruptcy.
In late December, following Rhode's court order to reveal the cost of the final expenses by the end of the year, the city filed its list of fees and expenses of nearly $178 million it paid to lawyers, consultants and advisers for working on the case.
According to a December 30 disclosure filed by the city of Detroit to the court, city professionals, including consultants, attorneys and advisers, were paid over $140 million, while nearly $38 million was paid to fee examiner parties, mediators, judge experts, and to other attorneys and financial advisers.
The final bills and expenses filed by the city of Detroit still need to be approved by Rhodes, who has up to 14 days to determine whether the fees are reasonable, according to various media reports.
The city filed for bankruptcy in July, 2013, after accumulating some $18 billion of debt, and exited bankruptcy on December 10 2014. Detroit, which became the largest city in US history to declare bankruptcy, also suffered from increased unemployment and a decreasing population.
