On July 20, 2019, the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted a motion for preliminary approval of the proposed settlement in the Yahoo! Inc. customer data security breach litigation. The case arose from two security breaches in 2013 and 2014 in which the sensitive personal information of 500 million individuals is alleged to have been compromised.
Earlier this year, in January 2019, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary approval because the proposed notice of settlement inadequately disclosed the release of claims related to the breach, failed to state the size of the settlement fund, the size of the settlement class, and the scope of non-monetary relief. In the first proposed settlement, the release of certain claims was also deemed improper.
In the court’s opinion, the amended proposed settlement agreement remedies these deficiencies, and satisfies the requirements of numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequate representation. The proposed settlement establishes a fund of $117,500,000, and would provide either a cash payment or at least two years of credit monitoring services to class members.
A final approval hearing is scheduled for April 2020.