District Court grants final approval to class action data breach settlement against national convenience store chain

Courts Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security Class Action Data Breach Settlement

On April 20, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted final approval to a settlement in a class action against a national convenience store chain (defendant) for a 2019 data security incident that allegedly compromised consumers’ credit and debit card information. As previously covered by InfoBytes, class members claimed that “despite the foreseeability of a data breach” the defendant, among other things, “failed to implement adequate measures to protect the sensitive, non-public payment card information entrusted to it by its customers.” In May 2021, the court ruled that the defendant must face certain claims filed by a group of financial institutions (covered by InfoBytes here). In August, the court granted preliminary approval of the settlement, which required the defendant to provide monetary relief to class members totaling approximately $9 million, plus $3.2 million for attorneys’ fees and expenses and class representative service awards, in addition to requiring the defendant to take additional measures for a period of two years to prevent future unauthorized intrusions. The settlement includes three tiers of customers, who will receive gift cards for either $5 or $15, or $500 in cash, depending on the level of their injury caused by the data breach.