New Yahoo Data Breach Settlement Filed, Boosting Its Value to $117.5M
The new proposal includes a single fund from which $55 million would be available for out-of-pocket costs and $24 million in identity theft protection for class members.
April 09, 2019 at 10:26 AM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The Recorder
Attorneys have boosted a class action settlement over Yahoo Inc.'s recent data breaches to $117.5 million after a federal judge rejected preliminary approval of it earlier this year.
The settlement, filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, includes a single fund from which $55 million would be available for out-of-pocket costs and $24 million in identity theft protection for class members (or $100 payments to those who already have credit monitoring). It also includes $30 million in attorney fees and $2.5 million in legal costs, a slight reduction from the original fee request.
“Following the court's denial of preliminary approval, the parties immediately set about addressing the issues the court identified, re-engineering the resolution of this case,” wrote lead plaintiffs counsel, Tampa, Florida-based John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan.
The deal is one of the largest data breach settlements in U.S. history.
In 2016, Yahoo announced 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 accounts, a figure that Verizon increased to 3 billion last year. The settlement also involves a third breach in 2015 and 2016.
The defendants are Altaba Inc., the division of Verizon formerly known as Yahoo, and Oath Holdings Inc., which owns Yahoo's holding company.
The original $85 million settlement included a $50 million fund from which consumers could make claims for out-of-pocket costs. In addition, Yahoo had agreed to provide at least two years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection insurance to class members.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who rejected the deal on Jan. 28, asked why the class involved only 200 million individuals with about 1 billion Yahoo accounts. She also questioned why it took 32 firms to work on issues that were “not particularly novel.” The $35 million fee request was “unreasonably high,” she wrote. The firms had included a $22 million lodestar calculation for 143 lawyers.
She also found the settlement improperly released claims relating to smaller breaches in 2012, calling Yahoo's nondisclosures and lack of transparency “egregious.”
An amended complaint filed Monday, however, expanded the class to include Yahoo users in 2012. The motion for settlement approval estimated that 194 million individuals holding 896 million accounts would be part of the class.
The $117.5 million settlement fund would reimburse businesses and individuals, with a $25,000 cap for individuals. The reimbursement is for fraud charges, and other costs, and includes compensable time spent dealing with the breach's repercussions. The fund also includes $6 million in administrative costs.
Leftover funds would not revert to the defendants but end up distributed as cy pres to the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
The new deal includes an information security budget of more than $300 million over the next four years, with 200 people involved, which are “amounts that are at least four times and three times greater, respectively, than Yahoo maintained prior to this case,” the motion says.
“Enhanced and improved data security is a critical aspect of the settlement,” the motion says.
A spokesman for Verizon Media, speaking for Yahoo, said in an emailed statement: “We believe that the settlement demonstrates our strong commitment to security.”
Yahoo is represented in the matter by counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Hunton Andrews Kurth.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllTrending Stories
- 1The Benefits of E-Filing for Affordable, Effortless and Equal Access to Justice
- 2AI and Social Media Fakes: Are You Protecting Your Brand?
- 3A Primer on Using Third-Party Depositions To Prove Your Case at Trial
- 4‘Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission’: Another Consequence of 'Hobby Lobby'?
- 5With DEI Rollbacks, Employment Lawyers See Potential For Targeting Corporate Commitment to Equality
Who Got The Work
J. Brugh Lower of Gibbons has entered an appearance for industrial equipment supplier Devco Corporation in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The suit, accusing the defendant of selling knock-off Graco products, was filed Dec. 18 in New Jersey District Court by Rivkin Radler on behalf of Graco Inc. and Graco Minnesota. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, is 3:24-cv-11294, Graco Inc. et al v. Devco Corporation.
Who Got The Work
Rebecca Maller-Stein and Kent A. Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer have entered their appearances for Hanaco Venture Capital and its executives, Lior Prosor and David Frankel, in a pending securities lawsuit. The action, filed on Dec. 24 in New York Southern District Court by Zell, Aron & Co. on behalf of Goldeneye Advisors, accuses the defendants of negligently and fraudulently managing the plaintiff's $1 million investment. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick, is 1:24-cv-09918, Goldeneye Advisors, LLC v. Hanaco Venture Capital, Ltd. et al.
Who Got The Work
Attorneys from A&O Shearman has stepped in as defense counsel for Toronto-Dominion Bank and other defendants in a pending securities class action. The suit, filed Dec. 11 in New York Southern District Court by Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, accuses the defendants of concealing the bank's 'pervasive' deficiencies in regards to its compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and the quality of its anti-money laundering controls. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, is 1:24-cv-09445, Gonzalez v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank et al.
Who Got The Work
Crown Castle International, a Pennsylvania company providing shared communications infrastructure, has turned to Luke D. Wolf of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani to fend off a pending breach-of-contract lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 25 in Michigan Eastern District Court by Hooper Hathaway PC on behalf of The Town Residences LLC, accuses Crown Castle of failing to transfer approximately $30,000 in utility payments from T-Mobile in breach of a roof-top lease and assignment agreement. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan K. Declercq, is 2:24-cv-13131, The Town Residences LLC v. T-Mobile US, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Wilfred P. Coronato and Daniel M. Schwartz of McCarter & English have stepped in as defense counsel to Electrolux Home Products Inc. in a pending product liability lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 26 in New York Eastern District Court by Poulos Lopiccolo PC and Nagel Rice LLP on behalf of David Stern, alleges that the defendant's refrigerators’ drawers and shelving repeatedly break and fall apart within months after purchase. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack, is 2:24-cv-08204, Stern v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250