Accellion Set to Pay $8.1M to Millions of Data Breach Victims

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Accellion Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Overview:

• Why: The settlement marks the beginning of the end of multidistrict litigation that stemmed from extensive data breaches of Accellion’s systems.
• Who: Accellion has reached a settlement with several data breach plaintiffs.
• Where: The lawsuit was filed in California federal court.

Accellion has reached a preliminary multimillion dollar deal that would settle multidistrict litigation stemming from massive data breaches of Accellion’s file transfer systems that affected 9.2 million customers. 

Under the settlement, a cash fund of $8.1 million will be set up to pay for claims, notice and administration costs, any service awards to the named plaintiffs and any fee award and costs awarded by the court to the lead attorneys. 

Accellion must pay $4.6 million of this fund into escrow within 10 business days of the settlement agreement’s execution. The remaining $3.5 million will be placed into escrow 10 business days after the settlement’s preliminary approval.

Despite the substantial price tag, Accellion denies all of the allegations and any liability. The company maintains that it did not owe a legal duty of care to the plaintiffs and acted reasonably.

The settlement awaits the approval of U.S. District Judge Edward Davila who will hear the motion on June 9.

Accellion to Pay Up And Improve Security Per Settlement

Claimants to this settlement can choose one of the following three options:

• Two years of three-bureau credit monitoring and insurance services
• Reimbursement of documented losses of up to $10,000
• A cash fund payment estimated at $15 to $50 based on a percentage of the claims rate

Accellion will “use best efforts to ascertain the number of and contact information for any additional class members” who might be eligible for claims under the settlement.  

Further, Accellion will fully retire its FTA system and move its clients over to its newer Kiteworks system. The company will also expand its bug bounty program, provide annual cybersecurity training to all employees, employ cybersecurity personnel and periodically confirm compliance with these measures publicly on its website. 

Accellion Data Breach Result of Several Failures, Class Action Says

Accellion first disclosed the breaches in late 2020 and early 2021, warning customers that its FTA software had been breached by “threat actors” who were able to steal sensitive data from “many Accellion clients, including corporations, law firms, banks, universities and other entities.”

The class action in question was first filed in February 2021. The complaint alleged that Accellion failed to implement and maintain adequate data security practices, prevent the cyber attacks and the FTA data breach, detect security vulnerabilities leading to the attacks and data breach and disclose that its data security practices were inadequate to safeguard customers’ personal information.

Was your information exposed in the Accellion data breach? You may be eligible for relief!

The plaintiffs are represented by Tina Wolfson, Robert Ahdoot and Andrew W. Ferich of Ahdoot & Wolfson, PC, and Ben Barnow and Anthony L. Parkhill of Barnow and Associates, P.C.

The Accellion Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Fehlen v. Accellion Inc., Case No. 5:21-cv-01353-EJD, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California

Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:

• Equifax Data Breach Class Action Settlement
• RailWorks Data Breach Class Action Settlement
• Forever 21 Data Breach Class Action Settlement
• Kroger Data Breach $5M Class Action Settlement