NationsBenefits Moves to Centralize Fortra Data Breach Action in Minn. Court
Defendant NationsBenefits moves for all related actions against Fortra involving a January data breach to be transferred to the U.S. District Court in Minnesota, a common jurisdiction that has the first-filed action, said its Wednesday memorandum (docket 3:23-cv-01224) in support…
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of a motion for transfer and centralization before the U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) in In re: Fortra File Transfer Software Data Security Breach Litigation. The facts and circumstances of the related cases are “very similar” to those in the In re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation cases that the JPML found justified centralization and transferred to U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, said the memorandum. With cases in Fortra filed throughout the country, Minnesota is the most centrally located of the forum districts, said the memorandum, noting Fortra is headquartered in Minneapolis. Centralization will prevent different courts from arriving at contrary rulings on scope of discovery, evidentiary issues and substantive motions, it said. Some 46 class actions are pending in seven federal judicial districts involving a January data breach in which Russian ransomware group Clop targeted Fortra’s GoAnywhere managed file transfer software, exploiting a then-unknown software vulnerability, it said. NationsBenefits contracted with Fortra to license and use the software and was named a defendant in 18 of the cases in the Southern District of Florida that have been consolidated under the lead case, Skuraskis v. NationsBenefits et al., it said. NationsBenefits’ clients were named in several of the related actions pending in the Southern District of Indiana and the District of Connecticut. Of the remaining cases with no direct relationship to NationsBenefits, four are in federal courts in Northern California, four in federal court in Connecticut, one in Indiana, one in Minnesota and seven in the Middle District of Tennessee, it said. Consolidation of related cases pending in California, Connecticut, Ohio and Tennessee occurred in those respective jurisdictions, it said. The Fortra data breach affected over 100 entities; additional tagalong cases are likely, it said.