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Other Settlements.
−Removed: Securities Class Action Litigation.
−Removed: On February 12, 2020, we entered into a settlement agreement to resolve a consolidated putative class action lawsuit pending in the U.S.
−Removed: District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleging violations of certain federal securities laws in connection with statements and alleged omissions regarding our cybersecurity systems and controls.
−Removed: Under the settlement, the Company agreed to create a settlement fund for the benefit of a settlement class consisting of persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired publicly-traded Company stock from February 25, 2016 through September 15, 2017, subject to certain exclusions.
−Removed: On June 26, 2020, we received final court approval of the settlement.
−Removed: Shareholder Derivative Litigation.
−Removed: On February 12, 2020, the Company, by and through a committee of independent directors, and individual defendants entered into a settlement agreement to resolve a consolidated putative shareholder derivative action pending in the U.S.
−Removed: District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleging claims for breaches of fiduciary duties, unjust enrichment, corporate waste and insider selling by certain defendants, as well as certain claims under the federal securities laws.
−Removed: The settlement agreement provides for the Company’s adoption of certain governance changes and an insurance recovery for the Company.
−Removed: On June 22, 2020, we received final court approval for the settlement.
Financial Institutions MDL Class Action.
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The Company also agreed to adopt and/or maintain certain business practices related to its information security program.
−Removed: On June 4, 2020, we received preliminary court approval of the settlement.
−Removed: The settlement is subject to a number of other conditions, including final court approval.
−Removed: We can provide no assurance that all conditions will be satisfied or that final court approval will be obtained.
+Added: The court granted final approval of the settlement on October 22, 2020.
Pennsylvania State Court Financial Institution Class Action.
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Canadian Class Actions.
−Removed: Eight Canadian class actions, six of which are on behalf of a national class of approximately 19,000 Canadian consumers, were filed against us in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.
+Added: Five putative Canadian class actions, four of which are on behalf of a national class of approximately 19,000 Canadian consumers, are pending against us in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
Each of the proposed Canadian class actions asserts a number of common law and statutory claims seeking monetary damages and other related relief in connection with the 2017 cybersecurity incident.
−Removed: The plaintiffs in each of the remaining cases seek class certification/authorization on behalf of Canadian consumers whose personal information was allegedly impacted by the 2017 cybersecurity incident.
−Removed: In some cases, plaintiffs also seek class certification on behalf of a larger group of Canadian consumers who had contracts for subscription products with Equifax around the time of the incident or earlier and were not impacted by the incident.
−Removed: On October 21, 2019, the court in the Quebec case dismissed the plaintiff’s motion for authorization to institute a class action, ending the matter.
−Removed: On December 13, 2019, the court in the active Ontario case granted certification of a nationwide class that includes impacted Canadians as well as Canadians who had subscription products with Equifax between March 7, 2017 and July 30, 2017.
−Removed: We have sought leave to appeal this decision.
−Removed: All remaining purported class actions are at preliminary stages.
−Removed: In addition, one of the cases in Ontario as well as the Saskatchewan case have been stayed.
−Removed: The appeal of the court’s order staying the Saskatchewan case was dismissed, and the case is permanently stayed.
−Removed: Individual Consumer Litigation.
−Removed: We have over one hundred individual consumer actions pending against us in state (general jurisdiction and small claims) and federal courts, including the MDL Court, across the U.S.
−Removed: related to the 2017 cybersecurity incident.
−Removed: The plaintiffs/claimants in these cases have generally claimed to have been harmed by alleged actions and/or omissions by Equifax in connection with the 2017 cybersecurity incident and assert a variety of common law and statutory claims seeking primarily monetary damages.
−Removed: We believe that many of the remaining individual consumer actions will be subject to the settlement in the U.S.
−Removed: Consumer MDL Litigation discussed above, unless the individual consumers submitted a valid and timely request to be excluded from the settlement.
+Added: In addition to seeking class certification on behalf of Canadian consumers whose personal information was allegedly impacted by the 2017 cybersecurity incident, in some cases, plaintiffs also seek class certification on behalf of a larger group of Canadian consumers who had contracts for subscription products with Equifax around the time of the incident or earlier and were not impacted by the incident.
+Added: On December 13, 2019, the court in Ontario granted certification of a nationwide class that includes all impacted Canadians as well as Canadians who had subscription products with Equifax between March 7, 2017 and July 30, 2017 who were not impacted by the incident.
+Added: Our motion for leave to appeal this decision was granted in part, and our appeal is now pending.
+Added: All remaining purported class actions are at preliminary stages or stayed.
Government Investigations.
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The District Court subsequently deferred final approval of the settlement and required the settling parties to send a supplemental notice to those class members who filed a claim and objected to the settlement or opted out, with the cost for the re-notice to be deducted from the plaintiffs’ counsel fee award.
−Removed: Mailing of the supplemental notice was completed on February 15, 2011 and the deadline for this group of settling plaintiffs to provide additional documentation to support their damage claims or to opt-out of the settlement was March 31, 2011.
+Added: Mailing of the supplemental notice was completed on February
+Added: 15, 2011 and the deadline for this group of settling plaintiffs to provide additional documentation to support their damage claims or to opt-out of the settlement was March 31, 2011.
On July 15, 2011, the District Court approved the settlement.
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On March 16, 2020, the objecting plaintiffs filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, which was denied.
+Added: On July 17, 2020, the district court signed an order granting the final award of attorneys’ fees and setting forth deadlines for payment of the settlement costs and the distribution of the non-monetary award.
+Added: Equifax has now paid all settlement costs and is in the process of distributing the non-monetary award to consumers.
Equifax has been named as a defendant in various other legal actions, including administrative claims, regulatory matters, government investigations, class actions and other litigation arising in connection with our business.
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For information regarding our accounting for legal contingencies, see Note 5 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in this Form 10-Q.
+Added: There have been no material changes with respect to the risk factors disclosed in our 2019 Form 10-K and our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2020.
Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.