The Superior Court of Quebec has approved a settlement agreement of more than $200 million reached with the Fédération des Caisses Desjardins in the context of class actions related to the leak of personal information announced in June 2019.
The law firms Siskinds Desmeules and Kugler Kandestin indicated in a press release published Friday that all those affected by the leak of personal information at Desjardins will be able to file a claim, regardless of their place of residence.
According to the law firms, the total monetary compensation from which the members of the group will be able to benefit could reach a maximum amount of $200,852,500.
Members will be able to claim compensation for the loss of time caused by the leak of personal information, as well as compensation in the event of identity theft.
In the latter case, it will be a lump sum compensation of a maximum amount of $1,000, according to the official site of the “Desjardins settlement”, administered by the RicePoint company.
The members of the group do not have to take any action at the moment. Notices to members containing instructions for filing a claim will be issued over a period of several months beginning around July 21, the law firms said.
Notices to members and clients are provided by AccèsD, by mail, and through newspaper advertisements.
The targeted group includes anyone in Canada affected by the leak of personal information publicly disclosed by Desjardins on June 20, 2019.
The two firms pointed out that the agreement provides additional time for class members who have not yet subscribed to Equifax’s credit monitoring service to allow them to subscribe to it for a period of five years, at Desjardins’ expense.
It is also a question of maintaining for a period of at least five years the other protective measures put in place by Desjardins in the context of the leak of personal information.
damning reports
In December 2020, two damning reports about the data breach that had affected more than 9.7 million people in Canada and abroad, including nearly 7 million Quebecers, concluded that Desjardins had failed to comply with several obligations imposed on it by the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector.
The report of the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec pointed out that the cooperative had “failed in its obligation to limit access to personal information, in particular that which is saved in shared directories”.
The Desjardins employee who is behind the leak worked in the marketing team at Desjardins’ head office.
He had access to personal information that his rights of access to databases did not allow him to obtain, underlined the report of the Commission on access to information.
Contrary to the directives, this confidential information was in directories shared by all the employees of the marketing team.