Yahoo corporate headquarters

Yahoo Inc. will file settlement papers next month resolving a raft of consumer class actions brought over its recent data breaches, according to court documents during the past week.

In a Sept. 14 notice, Yahoo attorney Ann Mortimer of Hunton Andrews Kurth in Los Angeles and lead plaintiffs' counsel John Yanchunis, of Morgan & Morgan in Tampa, told U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in the multidistrict litigation in federal court in San Jose, California, that both sides had reached an “agreement in principle.” They gave no details about the deal, but Yahoo, now called Altaba Inc., said in a Sept. 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had set aside $47 million in additional expenses to help pay for class actions related to the breach. Earlier this month, Koh gave final approval to an $80 million settlement to resolve shareholder lawsuits relating to the breaches.

A motion for preliminary approval of the consumer settlement is due Oct. 22.

Neither Yanchunis nor Mortimer responded to requests for comment.

The case involves three breaches that occurred between 2013 and 2016. In 2016, Yahoo disclosed that 500 million accounts had been hacked in 2014, compromising names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and passwords. Months later, Yahoo disclosed another breach in 2013 that affected 1 billion people, a figure that Verizon, which has since acquired Yahoo, increased to 3 billion last year. Yahoo notified users about a third breach in 2015 and 2016.

In March, Koh refused to dismiss a consolidated complaint in the litigation, allowing punitive damages to be part of the case. Yahoo, which added a group of lawyers from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to its legal team, also paid $35 million to resolve SEC claims that it failed to notify investors for two years about its 2014 breach.

The settlement comes after plaintiffs lawyers filed a class certification motion, which Yahoo opposed on Sept. 1.

It also comes amid several depositions, including that of former Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos, former Chief Information Officer Jay Rossiter and several plaintiffs' class certification experts. Yahoo's former general counsel, Ron Bell, had been scheduled for Sept. 12, and former CEO Marissa Mayer for Oct. 9, according to court documents.

Both sides reached a settlement after two all-day mediation sessions in San Francisco on Aug. 14 and Sept. 7 before former San Francisco Superior Court Judge Daniel Weinstein, now at JAMS, according to court documents. “The parties have executed a definitive term sheet containing all material terms of their agreement to settle the cases and provide substantial relief to the class,” lawyers wrote in a Tuesday motion to delay a Nov. 1 hearing on certification.

The settlement also includes data breach cases brought in California state court, which are coordinated in Orange County Superior Court.

According to a Monday filing with the SEC, Yahoo would be responsible for half the total settlement costs, while Verizon would pay the other half.