Class Action News 22nd August 2015

Ashley Madison adultery website faces $578m class action over data breach

Two Canadian law firms have filed a $578m class-action lawsuit against the companies that run Ashley Madison after a hacker group’s data breach exposed some 39 million memberships in the adultery website earlier this week.

Charney Lawyers and Sutts, Strosberg, both of Ontario, said Friday that they filed the lawsuit on behalf of Canadians who subscribed to Ashley Madison and whose personal information was disclosed to the public. The website, with its slogan “Life is short. Have an affair,” is marketed to facilitate extramarital relationships.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in the Ontario superior court of justice, targets Avid Dating Life and Avid Life Media, the Toronto-based companies that run AshleyMadison.com. Its class-action status “still needs to be certified by the court”, the statement says.

Ashley Madison did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It has said that the personal details exposed in the initial data leak can’t be used to prove the infidelity of their clients.

Olsen Twins Class Action Lawsuit: Olsens Sued For Poor Work Ethics, And Wage Theft

The class action lawsuit filed at the Manhattan Supreme Court alleges Dualstar Entertainment Group for not paying wages of 40 past and present interns at the company. A representative for the company released a statement defending the wage theft allegations as  "groundless."

Dualstar Entertainment is the parent company of prestigious labels, The Row and Elizabeth and James.  According to the Olsen Twins Class Action lawsuit, the interns were demanding payment for the work they provided for the company.  A former intern also alleges the company for their poor working conditions.

"The allegations in the complaint filed against Dualstar are groundless, and Dualstar will vigorously defend itself against plaintiff's claims in court, not before the media. Dualstar is confident that once the true facts of this case are revealed, the lawsuit will be dismissed in its entirety," Dualstar representative Annett Wolf wrote in a statement to USA TODAY.

The Class Action lawsuit claims that the interns deserved to be paid since they are providing the same work done by the regular employees.  They also cited the Olsens' work ethics that subjected the interns to longer working hours and too much work, Refinery29 reports.

Drivers score victory in Werner class action case

A federal judge’s recent rulings in a driver pay case involving a class of thousands of drivers who participated in Werner Enterprise’s Student Driver Program found that the company failed to pay its drivers for sleeper berth time and short rest breaks.

The findings set the stage for a trial in September to determine damages owed to a class of thousands of Werner drivers who participated in the driver training program for up to three years prior to the initial filing of the class action suit on Sept. 14, 2011.

According to the initial collective class action complaint filed on behalf of plaintiff Philip Petrone and other similarly situated drivers, Werner Enterprises and its subsidiary driver training program, Drivers Management LLC, violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by intentionally failing to compensate the class members for wages earned while in the company’s employment.

Petrone’s suit alleges he was enrolled in Werner’s Student Driver Program, a mandatory six- to eight-week course for new hires. While in the program, the company violated Nebraska labor laws by failing to pay plaintiffs the minimum wage for hours they worked. Specifically, the suit alleges that drivers were cheated out of funds due to them for rest breaks and meals.

No Reprieve for Barclays: May Face Class Action over LIBOR

  

With legal troubles mounting, Barclays PLC (BCS - Analyst Report) is likely to face a class action related to a lawsuit accusing the bank of inflating its stock price through manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIBOR"). According to a Reuters report, on Thursday, a U.S. judge ruled that the shareholders who filed the lawsuit may move forward with the case as a class action.

Argentina urges U.S. appeals court to toss debt class-action ruling

A U.S. appeals court on Friday signaled it might reverse a judge's decision that expanded a class action of bondholders suing Argentina over debt in default since 2002.

Members of a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York showed discomfort with a federal judge's decision to expand the class action over a series of euro-denominated bonds to cover anyone who held them instead of just continuous holders of the debt.

The 2nd Circuit on Aug. 10 had reversed U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa's similar expansion of eight other class actions against Argentina, and the country's lawyer, Carmine Boccuzzi, argued on Friday that the ninth was similarly too broad.

Some judges appeared to accept that argument, questioning how creditors could receive notice that they could opt out of the class and how the court could determine who ultimately was covered by the lawsuit, given secondary-market bond trading.

Class action silicosis and TB suit date set

A SEMINAL class action lawsuit against the country’s gold mining industry starts on Monday with activist groups set to argue to be allowed to join the case, as they expect to fully use the developing class action mechanism in the future.

Lobby group Section27 and two nonprofit allies intend to help bolster the case for applicants in the planned class action, which has few precedents. The long-awaited case will see 56 class representatives, acting on behalf of thousands of former mine workers, take on the entire gold mining sector in demanding compensation for silicosis and pulmonary tuberculosis they had contracted after 1965.

Representatives of the health rights group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and gender activist group Sonke Gender Justice, are seeking to join the suit as amici curiae, or friends of the court, in the two days of court proceedings.

The groups will argue that they "have an interest in developing this law (as their) constituency is marginalised people, which are the kind of people that class action lawsuits developed to help," Section27 lawyer John Stephens said at a media briefing on Thursday.

Class Action News 19th August 2015

Ashley Madison class-action lawsuit in the works in Canada

As fallout grows from a hack attack against infidelity website Ashley Madison, Missouri lawyers have filed a class-action lawsuit in United States district court seeking more than $5 million in damages.

And a prominent Toronto law firm is looking for potential plaintiffs to start a class-action suit for Canadian victims.

U.S. lawyers filed a statement of claim late last month on behalf of an unnamed female plaintiff from Maryland Heights, Mo., who said she’d ponied up $19 so Ashley Madison would purge her personal information from its website in a process called a “paid-delete.”

It’s alleged Toronto-based parent company Avid Life Media “failed to adequately analyze its computer systems for vulnerabilities that could expose cardholder data.”

“(Avid Life) maintains or maintained information ... regarding nearly 37-million subscribers, and defendant’s security failures affected the credit and debit cards of hundreds of thousands if not millions of customers.”

Investors launch class action against alleged £50m fund fraud

Victims of an alleged £50 million fund fraud have taken legal action in a bid to get their money back, according to The Times.

The class action sheds light on money flows from the CWM fund, which promised investors high rates of return through interest from banks in the Cayman Islands.

The fund was run by Capital World Markets, which was formed two years ago and won the right to become Chelsea football club’s ‘online forex trading partner’ at the start of the year. The Premier League champions have since dropped their association with the firm.

Earlier this year City of London police arrested 13 people in a raid on the firm’s headquarters in Heron Tower at part of its investigation into alleged fraud.

Class Action Lawsuits Filed Against J. Crew and Build-A-Bear on Behalf of Blind Customers Nationwide

J.Crew Group, Inc., a national clothing retailer, and Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc., a retailer of children's stuffed animals, were sued in separate class action lawsuits last week in the Southern District of New York (Case No. 15-cv-06337) and the District of Colorado, (Case No. 15-cv-01724), respectively, alleging the companies discriminate against their blind customers.

The lawsuits, brought by the Martinez Law Group, P.C., on behalf of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, a nonprofit disability rights advocacy organization, the National Federation of the Blind, the nation's leading advocate for the rights of the blind, and seven individual named Plaintiffs who reside in New York, Colorado, Texas, and California, allege violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as various state laws, based on the merchants' failure to provide accessible point-of-sale devices (POS Devices) that enable blind customers to securely enter their private PIN codes when making a purchase.  

Both merchants have been sued repeatedly by blind customers over the last two years for their failure to provide accessible POS Devices. Despite numerous prior lawsuits, the merchants continued, for years, to delay making the necessary changes required to make their POS Devices accessible to the blind. As alleged in each Complaint, the unnecessary and avoidable delay by both merchants in complying with the law is surprising given that the retailers operate extensively in California, which has since 2010 required that every merchant operating in California provide tactile keypads at every POS terminal.

Cleveland attorney wins class action settlement for Los Angeles water and power customers

Customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will be refunded $36 million as part of a settlement in a class action lawsuit against the utility, stemming from the same billing system problems that plagued the Cleveland water department for years.

The settlement, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, requires the utility to invest $20 million in a comprehensive overhaul of its billing system and conduct an audit of all 1.6 million customers accounts. The city also agreed to hire an independent monitor to ensure compliance.

Cleveland attorney Jack Landskroner filed the suit in April on behalf of ratepayers in Los Angeles, based in part on information he had gathered while investigating Cleveland's billing problems.

Tesco moves to toss U.S. securities case – but real action is in U.K

The British grocery giant Tesco moved Monday night to dismiss a securities class action in Manhattan federal district court that alleges the company’s coverup of an accounting scheme eventually resulted in a 15 percent plummet in the price of Tesco’s American Depository Receipts. Tesco’s lawyers at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz argue that because Tesco ADRs do not trade on a U.S. stock exchange – they are only sold over the counter – investors cannot sue in federal court under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank.

According to Wachtell, this issue has already been decided, in an early post-Morrison ruling that tossed a class action against Societe Generale. That decision briefly noted that because SocGen ADRs traded only in the relatively informal over-the-counter market, those transactions are “primarily foreign.” Tesco contends that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed in its 2014 decision in Parkcentral Global Hub v. Porsche that investors in securities not traded on U.S. exchanges cannot sue issuers under federal law.

Amazon Softens Blow Of Times Article, But It’s Too Soon To Celebrate, Say Attorneys

In recent days, Amazon has worked to soften the blow of a blistering piece about its culture in Sunday’s New York Times. In the article’s immediate aftermath, Jeff Bezos wrote a memo to employees, saying the account “doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day.” He further pointed employees to a newer piece by current Amazon engineer Nick Ciubotariu that praises the company’s workplace environment.

The moves helped push the story in a positive direction for the company, as did the Times’s own public editor’s assessment of the story, which, she wrote yesterday, should have provided more balance and context. (The Times’s executive editor, Dean Banquet, later let her know that he disagreed entirely with her assessment.)

Still, employment attorneys suggest it may be a little soon for Amazon to break out the bubbly. They think there could well be a class-action lawsuit in the many anecdotes cited by the Times of employees who were treated poorly — particularly those who appear to have they lost their jobs owing to health issues and other demands outside of Amazon.

Banks face further forex pain as door opens for group legal action

Big banks implicated in the foreign exchange rate rigging scandal could face further legal action after new laws surrounding group legal action come into effect in the UK this autumn.

Earlier this week nine banks, including Barclays, RBS and HSBC, reached a settlement with complainants in an American class action lawsuit, agreeing to pay out a total of more than $2 billion (£1.28 billion).

Currently the UK has no equivalent of the American class action lawsuit, making it difficult for individuals, smaller companies and groups to take legal action for alleged breaches of competition law.

Target to pay Visa $67M in settlement over data breach

A settlement between Target Corp. and Visa Inc. moves the retailer a step closer to resolving most of the financial claims against it from the 2013 data breach.

However, an attorney representing banks and other card issuers and a trade group representing credit unions pressed Target for more.

Under the settlement announced Tuesday, Minneapolis-based Target will pay up to $67 million to cover the costs that Visa Inc. and issuers of Visa cards incurred when cyberthieves broke into Target’s data system. The amount is more than three times larger than a $19 million settlement between Target and MasterCard Inc. that fell apart in May when banks and other issuers rejected the amount as too low.

Class Action News 16th August 2015

Yunlin county residents file class action against chemical plants

A law firm representing 74 residents in central Taiwan's Yunlin county filed a class action on Thursday against five companies operating in the Formosa Plastics Group's sixth naphtha cracker complex and demanded compensation of NT$70.2 million (US$2.2 million).

At a press conference Friday, representatives of local residents filing the suit accused the complex, which has an annual output value of NT$1.66 trillion (US$51.6 billion), of making profits by sacrificing the health of residents in neighboring areas.

Homeowner’s sharp eye on fees was start of Troy Kelley’s undoing

If the political career of state Auditor Troy Kelley ultimately unravels with convictions for tax evasion and lying under oath, it will be homeowners like Paige Perisich who pulled the first string.

She and several others acted as plaintiffs in the lawsuits that were unsuccessful but uncovered what federal prosecutors now allege was theft of a tiny portion of real-estate closing costs. Prosecutors now say Kelley stole millions of dollars and hid it from tax collectors. He maintains his innocence and faces a January trial.

Tucson nursing students so unprepared that testing leaves them sobbing

Student nurse Jeff Nguyen gained something he didn’t expect from his schooling: firsthand experience in what it feels like to suffer from depression.

“I’ve never been depressed in my life. Now I’m on lorazepam and Xanax,” said the 42-year-old father of two, who owes $20,000 in student loans after a local for-profit college gave him training so flawed the state has put a hold on his ability to graduate.

He’s one of about 40 student nurses in limbo after attending Brown Mackie College in Tucson, a school that hired unqualified instructors and used veterinary supplies to train nursing students. Anxiety is so high among those affected that some students recently were referred to a suicide hotline.

Class Action News 15th August 2015

Uber beat the taxi companies but its real fight is ahead

Uber’s court skirmishes with the taxi industry are small potatoes compared to the fight with drivers.

Car-hire service Uber, which is embroiled in legal fights across the country, won a significant victory in court this week against a gang of taxi companies that want to drive it out of Connecticut. The ruling certainly helps Uber legitimize its business model, but doesn’t resolve the biggest legal question hanging over the company.

In the Connecticut ruling (see below), issued on Thursday, a federal judge threw out the taxi companies’ case, which accused Uber of unlawful tactics against taxi industry competitors and of deceiving consumers. The complaint featured a laundry list of legal claims, including racketeering, fraud, unfair competition and trademark infringement.

After cyberattack, CareFirst faces class action suit

Two CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield customers have filed a proposed class action suit against the Maryland health insurer after a cyberattack exposed about 1.1 million current and former members' personal information.

The suit alleges that CareFirst, the region's largest health insurer, failed to protect their data after the company became aware of security weaknesses during an attempted hack last year. The attackers, who left behind hidden back doors that let them later re-enter undetected, gained access to names, birth dates, email addresses and insurance identification numbers during a breach in June 2014 CareFirst officials said when they disclosed the hack in May.

The damages arising from the incident exceed $5 million, according to the lawsuit filed Aug. 6 in U.S. District Court, which accuses CareFirst of negligence and failing to notify customers in a timely fashion. The two plaintiffs include a Maryland resident who received the insurance through her job with the state.

US settlements over forex rigging scandal opens door for UK lawsuits

Nine banks have paid a total of $9bn to investors in the US over claims they rigged foreign exchange markets, and their lawyers hope to launch similar lawsuits in London

British and European investors could now get a chance to open lawsuits against banks accused of rigging financial markets, following a string of settlements in cases in the US, lawyers believe.

Another five major banks accused of foreign-exchange rigging have settled claims in a New York court with complainants, including pensions funds and institutional investors.

They join the four banks who settled earlier in the year, and the total payouts to investors now amount to more than $2bn (£1.28bn).

The settlement announced this week covers Barclays, Goldman Sachs, RBS, HSBC and BNP Paribas. The investors are still pursuing claims against Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, RBC Capital Markets, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.

As well as giving payments to the plaintiffs, the settling banks have also agreed to co-operate with the claimants, which lawyers say has opened up a trove of extra information which could be used in cases in the UK.

Hundreds of Huronia claims downgraded without notice

Almost a quarter of claims filed were downgraded from a potential $42,000 payout to a maximum of $2,000.

Almost 400 people with developmental disabilities who were expecting payouts of tens of thousands of dollars from a legal settlement with the government will only receive a maximum of $2,000, though they haven’t been informed and don’t have any recourse to appeal, the Star has learned.

After suffering physical and sexual abuse at the Huronia Regional Centre, former residents settled a class action lawsuit with the government for $35 million in 2013. More than 1,700 people made claims for a part of the settlement, divided into the less serious section A, which have their claims capped at $2,000, and the more severe section B, which are awarded up to $42,000.

But according to the litigation guardians, appointed to advise the disabled plaintiffs, 394 (almost ¼ of the 1,705 accepted claims) have been reclassified from section B to section A, reducing their potential payout by $40,000. And many of those who were reclassified are non-verbal and least able to make their case.

“I don’t think it’s fair that people who cannot speak for themselves should get only $2,000. I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think they were fully supported,” saidMarie Slark, a former Huronia resident and one of the representative plaintiffs on the class action case.

Templeton Rye settles class action suit over whiskey distilled in Indiana

LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. – Anyone who bought Templeton Rye whiskey thinking it was Iowa whiskey – when it was actually distilled in Indiana about a half-hour from Cincinnati – is entitled to as much as $36 under the terms of a $2.5 million class action settlement.

A group of plaintiffs brought the suits against the makers of Templeton after a journalist with The Daily Beast reported that dozens of “craft” whiskey brands, including Templeton Rye, were actually distilled by MGP in their Lawrenceburg factory.

Templeton’s labels had stated the product was “produced and bottled by: Templeton Rye Spirits, LLC, Templeton, Iowa” and but made no mention of the Indiana distillers. The whiskey is actually distilled and aged for four years in Lawrenceburg before being shipped to Iowa.

“Though our relationship between Templeton Rye and our Indiana-based distillery partner is described on our website, we recognize our marketing efforts should have provided more clarity about our production process,” Templeton Rye Spirits co-founder Keith Kerkhoff said in a statement on the settlement.

Class Action settlement: MF Global Holdings Ltd. (Individual Defendants and PWC)

Class Action MF Global Holdings Ltd

Security Name: MF Global Holdings common stock and bonds

MF Global common stock (including shares acquired through the MF Global Ltd. Amended and Restated 2007 Long Term Incentive Plan or the MF Global Ltd. Employee Stock Purchase Plan) (CUSIP 55277J108);

MF Global’s 9% Convertible Senior Notes due June 20, 2038, issued on or about June 25, 2008 (CUSIP 55276YAB2);

MF Global’s 1.875% Convertible Senior Notes due February 1, 2016, issued on or about February 7, 2011 (CUSIP 55277JAA6)

MF Global’s 3.375% Convertible Senior Notes due August 1, 2018, issued on or about July 28, 2011 (CUSIP 55277JAB4); and

MF Global’s 6.25% Senior Notes due August 8, 2016, issued on or about August 1, 2011 (CUSIP 55277JAC2).

Case Name: IN RE MF GLOBAL HOLDINGS LIMITED SECURITIES LITIGATION

CUSIP: 55277J108, 55276YAB2, 55277JAC2, 55277JAB4, 55277JAA6

ISIN: US55277J1088, US55276YAB20, US55277JAC27, US55277JAB44, US55277JAA60

Claim Filing Deadline: December 3, 2015

Exclusion Deadline: October 23, 2015

Qualification criteria: 

Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired any of the MF Global Securities during the period beginning on May 20, 2010 through and including November 21, 2011 

Class Action Settlement Website HERE

Class Action Notice HERE

Proof of Claim and Release HERE

Class Action News 13th August 2015

Govt files class action suit against Nestle on behalf ofMaggi consumers for Rs. 640 crores

The Department of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has in apress release informed that it has filed a complaint under section 12(1)(d) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 in the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) against ‘Nestle India Ltd.’

The Department has filed the case claiming that Nestle is liable to pay a sum of Rs. 284.55 crores (Rs 2,845.50 million) and punitive damages amounting to Rs. 355.40 crores (Rs 3,554.07 million) on account of the gross negligence, apathy and callousness on its part. Thus a total amount of of Rs. 639. 96 crores (Rs 6,399.57 million) has been demanded from Nestle.

The Department says that it has filed this class action suit on behalf of the large number of consumers of Maggi in the country on grounds of unfair trade practices, sale of defective goods and sale of Maggi Oats Noodles to the public without product approval. As per TOI, after discussing it for weeks, consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan had cleared the proposal to file the case on 10 August 2015.

GE RetireesSeek Class Action Status for Lawsuit

A lawsuit against General Electric is being closely watched in boardrooms around America, as the company defends its decision to shut down its retiree health care plan.

In 2012, GE announced to its some of its retirees that they would no longer be part of its GE Medicare Benefits Plan. In 2014, the entire plan was scrapped. Instead, the conglomerate would give them a thousand dollars each year, with which they could purchase coverage through Towers Watson – a private health exchange plan. 

But according to Tom Geoghegan, the attorney for the plaintiffs, earlier in 2012, GE had issued a key promise.

“GE in its summary plan description repeatedly said that it both expected and intended to continue the benefits, as described in those handbooks, indefinitely,” Geoghegan told WNPR. His clients are two former GE workers in Milwaukee, Dennis Rocheleau and Evelyn Kaufman.

Geoghegan said that promise in the handbook, that GE would do its best to continue the plan, is the basis of the suit.

Olsen TwinsRespond to Class Action Lawsuit From 40 Interns

Unpaid internships are no fun, but 40 current and previous interns of "Full House" alumni Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are now suing the twins' Dualstar Entertainment Group for wage theft. How rude! (Sorry.)

According to USA Today, the class action suit alleges Dualstar should have paid interns minimum wage because they were doing similar jobs as paid employees without receiving any academic or vocational credit. However, the Olsens have now responded to the lawsuit, via a statement from Dualstar's rep Annett Wolf to USA Today:

Vivendisquelches big investor’s $57 million claim in class action

The French media company Vivendi proved Tuesday that it is possible to rebut theinfamous presumption in securities class actions that investors relied on market-distorting corporate misrepresentations. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin of Manhattan grantedVivendi’s motion for summary judgment against claims by the institutional investor Southeastern Asset Management, or SAM, concluding that the evidence – including a five-hour deposition of the analyst who oversaw SAM’s Vivendi stake – showed SAM did not make investment decisions based on Vivendi’s supposedly fraudulent statements.

That’s quite a win for Vivendi and its lawyers at Weil Gotshal & Manges. Vivendi was found liable to a class of investors back in 2010, after a rare securities class action trial. Last December, Judge Scheindlin entered a partial final judgment against the company, awarding investors about $50 million in damages and interest. But Vivendi retained the right to challenge claims by some big investors. SAM was the biggest of them. It held more than 45 percent of Vivendi’s American Depository Receipts during part of the alleged fraud. If Vivendi had lost summary judgment, it would have been on the hook for $57 million in damages – more than it owes the rest of the investor class.