Privacy Litigation 2021 Year in Review: Data Breach Litigation

Cyber incidents top the list of issues keeping in-house counsel up at night. And as we continue to see the number of incidents climb, we continue to see class actions filed in their wake. So what are the highlights from 2021 and what can we expect in the coming year?

• We count 36 major data breach class actions filed this past year, treating multiple cases filed against a single defendant as one major class action. This is a significant increase over the 25 major class actions filed last year.
• We continue to see courts compel disclosure of reports prepared by incident response consultants hired by counsel.
• We count 16 settlements in major federal data breach cases in 2021, with several trends visible.
• Even with the significant increase in major data breach litigation filed in 2021, we again predict that we will see even more major data breach cases filed next year given the enormous increase in all types of security incidents in 2021.

Source:

• Morrison Foerster: Privacy Litigation 2021 Year in Review: Data Breach Litigation