The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a landmark $725 million settlement in the class action case over the 2018 Cambridge Analytica privacy breach. The case, In re Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, addressed Facebook’s unlawful sharing of users' private data with third-party developers, including Cambridge Analytica, without user consent.
 
Keller Rohrback partner Derek Loeser serves as co-lead counsel in the case. He and his Keller Rohrback colleagues, including Cari Campen Laufenberg, Benjamin Gould, Chris Springer, David Ko, and Adele Daniel, among many others, together with their co-counsel, achieved a historic result in the case, securing the largest recovery ever in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has paid to resolve a private class action.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Judge Chhabria’s decision to approve the settlement, finding that the district court “thoroughly reviewed the settlement to ensure compliance with the requirements of both Rule 23(e) and the non-exhaustive Hanlon factors,” and “considered all the objections to settlement and overruled them with a ‘reasoned explanation.’” Mr. Loeser argued the appeal.

“We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit has rejected the objections that have held up distribution of the settlement for over 15 months, and affirmed Judge Chhabria’s thorough orders approving the settlement,” Loeser and his Co-Counsel said in statement to Law360. “The settlement is an excellent result for the class that required an extraordinary amount of work by our dedicated team of lawyers and professionals.” 

This settlement is a high-water mark for privacy class actions and demonstrates that consumers’ personal data and information is a valuable resource that social media and other companies must safeguard and not abuse. We congratulate the Facebook class and look forward to being able to distribute the settlement fund.