When you finally reach an agreement to settle a hotly contested class action, you want more than anything for the court to approve your settlement agreement and for the case to be over. But, to get to the end of the case,...more
Class action settlements can be structured in a variety of ways. Many include a common fund, consisting of an agreed-to amount the defendant deposits into a Qualified Settlement Fund, or “QSF,” a tax vehicle that facilitates...more
The CFPB has filed an amicus brief in the Maryland Court of Appeals urging the court to affirm the decision of the Court of Special Appeals reversing the trial court’s approval of a settlement agreement in a class action...more
On November 1, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a summary order rejecting the appeal of an objector to the Foreign Exchange Antitrust Settlement. A few weeks earlier, U.S. District Court...more
Cy pres distribution of residual settlement funds has come under increased scrutiny in recent years. Perhaps for this reason, the Florida Supreme Court on May 16, 2019, refused to approve an amendment to Florida Rule of Civil...more
We previously wrote about the Yahoo data breaches, subsequent class action pending in California, and the company’s estimate of potential settlement costs. Based on the Plaintiffs’ recent Motion for Preliminary Approval of...more
When class action settlement funds are not amenable to individual claims or to a meaningful pro rata distribution, courts have used the cy pres doctrine to distribute the funds to nonprofit charitable organizations whose work...more
Plaintiffs signed engagement letters with the law firm Finkelstein & Partners (the “law firm”) to represent them in two separate personal injury lawsuits on a contingency basis. ...more
In four decisions from the past few months, the Seventh Circuit has staked out positions on several cutting-edge consumer class action issues. See In re: Subway Footlong Sandwich Marketing & Sales Practice Litig., 869 F.3d...more
Two consumer class actions recently hit a roadblock when courts denied final approval for class settlements. In In re Target Consumer Data Security Breach, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota preliminarily...more
An insured corporation settles a class action, and a portion of the settlement pays the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Payments to the class are excluded from coverage under the terms of the corporation’s liability policy. But can...more
More than a year and a half ago, Home Depot announced that it had been a victim of one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history. Media outlets reported that the breach had affected Home Depot’s customers who had made...more