Some irate Minnesota attorneys have a warning for Target Corp. and MasterCard: Not so fast.
A week after a $19 million settlement was announced in connection with Target data breach, opposing attorneys who represent affected banks are trying to block the deal, accusing Target and MasterCard of being “misleading and coercive.”
Late Tuesday, those lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in St. Paul for a preliminary injunction that would void the deal and warn banks that the proposed settlement low-balls their breach-related costs.
“The total losses actually suffered by card- issuing financial institutions are astronomically higher than the $19 million offered under the proposed settlement,” said the motion filed by Minneapolis attorneys Charles Zimmerman and Karl Cambronne.
The amount of estimated losses was redacted in the public filing. But the motion states that MasterCard “has identified approximately 8.8 million accounts affected by the Target Data Breach.”
Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder declined to comment on the filing Wednesday, noting that “as this is pending litigation, we’re not going to have anything to add at this time.”
Some 40 million Target shoppers had their credit- or debit-card information stolen during the 2013 holiday season after cyberthieves broke into Target’s payment network. Millions of those stolen card numbers were then offered for sale online to criminals around the world.
Scores of lawsuits stemming from the case were consolidated last year before Magnuson’s courtroom in St. Paul, with a trial set for next year. Now, the attorneys for the affected banks accuse Target and MasterCard of doing an end-run around that process.
“Target wanted all claims related to the breach centralized before this court,” the motion said. But having achieved that, Target should not be working “brazenly outside the court’s purview,” the filing said.
On April 15, Minneapolis-based Target Corp. announced the deal with MasterCard, with the settlement set to go into effect if at least 90 percent of eligible card-issuers accept the offer by May 20.
Scott Kennedy, president of Target’s financial and retail services, said in an April 15 statement that Target was hopeful that “a high level” of card issuers would accept the deal.
And for those who don’t, Kennedy said, “Target intends to continue to defend itself vigorously against any assessments made by MasterCard on behalf of MasterCard issuers that do not accept their offers.”
Tom Webb can be reached at 651-228-5428. Follow him at twitter.com/TomWebbMN.
