Sony Pictures Settles Data Breach Lawsuit
September 02 2015 - 10:20PM
Dow Jones News
LOS ANGELES—Former Sony Pictures Entertainment employees whose
personal information was posted online last year after a data
breach have reached a settlement in a proposed class-action
lawsuit, their attorneys said Wednesday.
The settlement was announced in a filing in a federal lawsuit
that was seeking class-action status on behalf of nearly 50,000
current and former Sony employees whose private personal, financial
and medical information was posted online. The filing doesn't
detail the settlement's terms or how many people would be covered
under it.
"We believe the proposed settlement is a favorable resolution of
the claims asserted by the plaintiffs," attorney Daniel C. Girard
wrote in the filing.
Mr. Girard didn't return an email message seeking further
comment. Sony declined to comment on the settlement, which was
reached Tuesday but still needs to crafted into a formal agreement.
Additional details about the settlement are expected to be filed in
a Los Angeles federal court by mid-October.
At least 10 former Sony employees sued the company in U.S.
District Court in Los Angeles over the breach. A hearing on whether
the case would achieve class-action status had been scheduled for
Sept. 14. Cases filed in Los Angeles Superior Court remain
active.
The federal lawsuits accused Sony of failing to protect
employees' data, especially in light of previous breaches of the
company's servers.
A complaint by Sony Pictures' former director of technology
Lionel Felix cited previous hacks on Sony's servers, including a
2011 attack that breached millions of accounts of its PlayStation
Network. It also cited a security audit from earlier this year that
found faults with the company's electronic security procedures.
Other former employees criticized Sony's response to the data
breach, contending the company emphasized protecting its public
image instead of ensuring that its workers were protected from
identity theft as a result of having their Social Security numbers,
salary details and other sensitive data posted online.
The breach, which became public in November and was later linked
by the FBI to North Korea, included the posting of a trove of
internal company emails and the leak of several unreleased
films.
The materials are still creating headaches for the studio, which
this week has been defending itself against claims that it altered
the coming Will Smith film "Concussion" to keep from running afoul
of the NFL. The film dramatizes the work of forensic pathologist,
Dr. Bennet Omalu, who uncovered the fatal effects that repeated
head trauma has had on many NFL players.
Users of the online discussion site Reddit and then the New York
Times used leaked emails this week to try to show that Sony watered
down the film to avoid a confrontation with the NFL.
Sony has called the Times story misleading.
"As will become immediately clear to anyone actually seeing the
movie, nothing with regard to this important story has been
'softened' to placate anyone," Sony wrote in a statement.
Copyright 2015 the Associated Press
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 02, 2015 22:05 ET (02:05 GMT)
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