Hundreds of New York-based Bloomberg LP analytics representatives, who help clients navigate their Bloomberg Terminals, have been certified as a class in a federal action aimed at recovering unpaid overtime.

Southern District Judge Denise Cote on Thursday certified the class, whose putative membership includes more than 1,000 current and former employees. She focused much of her decision on how the plaintiffs had met Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)'s “predominance” requirement, which mandates that a class action predominantly involve questions of law or fact common to the class.

“The defendant [Bloomberg] argues that there is no primary duty common to the proposed class,” Cote wrote, adding, “According to the defendant, the responsibilities of the class members are so varied that the class members do not share a primary duty and that no generalized proof can be used to identify a single primary duty for the class.”