A Virginia federal judge has cleared the way for a new plaintiff to enter a putative class action accusing major shipbuilders of using “no-poach” agreements to suppress wages for engineers and architects, upholding a magistrate judge’s ruling that granted the plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint.

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Plaintiffs are represented by Steven J. Toll, Brent W. Johnson, Robert W. Cobbs, Alison S. Deich, Zachary R. Glubiak, Sabrina S. Merold, Silvie R. Saltzman and Callan C. Bruzzone of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Shana E. Scarlett, Rio S. Pierce, Eli Freedman, Steve W. Berman, Breanna Van Engelen, Elaine T. Byszewski and John Michael Grant of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, George F. Farah, Nicholas Jackson, Samantha Braver, Ellie Britt MacLean and William H. Anderson of Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Candice J. Enders, Julia R. McGrath and Marit Vike of Berger Montague PC, and Brian D. Clark, Arielle S. Wagner, Stephen J. Teti, and Olivia T. Levinson of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP.

Bank of America and EY have agreed to pay $2.5 million to nearly 200,000 people to settle claims in multidistrict litigation over the May 2023 breach of file transfer application MOVEit, according to a motion for settlement. 

The motion for preliminary approval of the deal, filed on Wednesday, said that in addition to reimbursement for losses or a cash payment of $100, the about 198,000 class members could file claims for two years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection to remedy the alleged damages resulting from the exploitation of the MOVEit system, which is owned and operated by Progress Software Corp. 

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More than 100 other commercial and government entity defendants face liability in the multidistrict litigation stemming from the breach. Recently, Cadence Bank reached a $5.3 million deal to end negligence claims it faced in the MDL, and Nebraska-based Union Bank & Trust Co. agreed to pay $2.4 million to resolve its alleged wrongdoing associated with the breach. 

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The plaintiffs are represented by Daniel J. Kurowski, Whitney K. Siehl and Kristen A. Johnson of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, E. Michelle Drake of Berger Montague, Gary F. Lynch of Lynch Carpenter LLP, Douglas J. McNamara of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Karen H. Riebel of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, and Charles E. S

Thousands of class members affected by seven Bon Secours Health System Inc. pension plans that were allegedly in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act asked a Maryland federal court Friday to give final approval to a settlement that would require the health care organization to provide $98.3 million to bolster funding.

The settlement agreement calls for the hospital to contribute $14 million a year for the next seven years to the seven plans at issue, which “represents the total amount of underfunding,” the plaintiffs said in a request for final approval of the agreement. In addition, the settlement calls for the hospital to pay another $300,000 to benefit about 500 people who have unique circumstances under one of the plans.

Arlene Hodges and other named plaintiffs collectively asserted the hospital didn’t operate the seven benefit plans according to ERISA regulations and instead said they were under the “church plan” exemption, which allowed it to sidestep ERISA protections for participants in a variety of ways. According to the plaintiffs, Bon Secours didn’t establish proper funding and disclosure requirements for the plans along with other issues. Class notices were sent to about 28,000 members.

A New York federal judge on Friday signed off on a $219 million settlement resolving several lawsuits surrounding a Bank of New York Mellon Corp. unit’s role in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, but put off ruling on a contentious $41 million fee request from attorneys.

The settlement puts to rest a class of investors’ claims that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office, the U.S. Department of Labor and private investors lodged against Ivy Asset Management LLC. The company, an investment advisory firm owned by BNY Mellon, conducted due diligence for clients with Madoff investments for years before the scheme came to light, but allegedly failed to disclose its suspicions that Madoff was a fraud.

In a one-page order, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon gave no reason for her decision to approve the settlement. She said an opinion would be forthcoming, along with her decision on the fee request, which has been challenged by Schneiderman.

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The plaintiffs are represented by Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart PC, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP and Bernstein Liebhard LLP.

Executives behind a New York-based barbecue chain and its employee stock ownership plan caretaker have agreed to pay $22.5 million to resolve a class action claiming they tanked workers’ savings in a $99 million stock purchase, according to a federal court filing.

The workers behind the case asked a New York federal judge Friday for preliminary approval on the $22.5 million deal reached with Argent Trust Co. and the executives behind W BBQ Holdings Inc., a holding company for restaurant chain Dallas BBQ, arguing the agreement represents a strong recovery for the ESOP participants.

“This case settled on the cusp of trial, after fact discovery, expert discovery, and the vast majority of trial preparation were completed,” the workers said. “In other words, class counsel thoroughly understood the strengths and weaknesses of plaintiffs’ claims and defendants’ defenses. These circumstances further favor approval of the settlement.”

Named plaintiff Jamaal Lloyd sued Argent and the executives behind W BBQ Holdings Inc. in 2022, claiming they cost workers millions in retirement savings by selling 400,000 shares of W BBQ common stock for nearly $99 million in an inflated deal in 2016. The U.S. Department of Labor also separately sued Argent and W BBQ in 2024 claiming the ESOP sale violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the parties struck a $15 million deal to settle the case in February.

On March 9, the workers told the court that they had also struck a deal with Argent and W BBQ to end their suit, days before trial was set to begin March 16.

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The workers said the settlement they reached with Argent and W BBQ represents a recovery of approximately 71% of the losses they claimed they faced from the ESOP sale, calling the agreement “a result that far exceeds typical recoveries in comparable ERISA class actions.”

Michelle C. Yau, who represents the class, told Law360 that her team is pleased with the “significant” value the settlement presents for workers, if approved.

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The workers are represented by Michelle C. Yau, Kai H. Richter, Daniel R. Sutter, Caroline E. Bressman, Ryan A. Wheeler, Elizabeth McDermott and Michael Eisenkraft of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court eased the requirements for bringing workplace discrimination claims in Muldrow v. St. Louis, courts’ cautious approach to applying the worker-friendly standard has allowed more bias cases to proceed without opening the floodgates, experts said. 

In the Muldrow ruling , handed down April 17, 2024, the justices unanimously disavowed the heightened legal hurdles that some lower courts had imposed to block workplace bias cases over employment actions considered to have less serious consequences. 

Under the justices’ standard, employees need not show they faced “significant” harm, but rather “some harm,” to move their suits ahead. 

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Worker-side attorney Harini Srinivasan, a partner in Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC’s civil rights and employment litigation practice, agreed. She said Muldrow hasn’t “opened the floodgates” but has “meaningfully moved the needle.” 

“It results in a broader, more realistic understanding of harm that’s influencing multiple areas of employment law but still being worked out in a fairly disciplined way in the lower courts,” she said. 

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“Claims that might once have been dismissed as too minor — whether involving transfers, assignments or delays in accommodation — are now getting further into litigation, including past summary judgment,” Cohen Milstein’s Srinivasan said. 

Fighters suing UFC over allegations of wage suppression have asked a Nevada federal judge to impose terminating sanctions on the organization and its parent company, TKO Operating Co. LLC, for failing to turn over court-ordered documents. 

The fighters said in a Tuesday motion that they are seeking sanctions, including default judgment, against UFC operator Zuffa, its parent company TKO, and TKO majority owner Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., for “repeated misconduct and violations” of the court’s orders. The defendants have refused to meet and confer and have stonewalled on producing court-ordered materials and information, the fighters said. 

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The individual fighters and proposed class are represented by Eric L. Cramer, Michael Dell’Angelo, Patrick F. Madden, Robert Maysey and Joshua P. Davis of Berger Montague, Joseph R. Saveri, Kevin E. Rayhill and Chris Young of the Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP, Richard A. Koffman, Benjamin D. Brown and Daniel H. Silverman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and W. Joseph Brucker, Kyle Pozan and Brian Clark of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP. 

An Illinois federal judge overseeing broiler chicken price-fixing litigation gave his early blessing Tuesday to a settlement that end users struck with Agri Stats Inc. that calls for the data service to either cease or substantially change the reports it compiles for protein industry subscribers.

Preliminarily approving Agri Stats’ proposed settlement with end users is warranted in the sprawling litigation because the parties have agreed to dismiss a pending summary judgment appeal and bear their own costs while the company makes “what I believe to be substantive changes in their policies, which certainly seems like a fair and reasonable settlement,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin said during a brief remote hearing.

“There are benefits to the class in the sense that Agri Stats is still in the business of providing data to the broiler chicken market,” Judge Durkin said. But the settlement calls for changes to the types, timing and display of such data, which “certainly would make any potential abuse of that data less likely,” he said.

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The broiler chicken end users are represented by Shana Scarlett, Steve Berman and Breanna Van Engelen of Hagens Verman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Brent Johnson, Benjamin Brown, Daniel Silverman, Alison Deich and Zachary Glubiak of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

AT&T Inc. has agreed to settle a proposed class action that aimed to represent 300,000 workers claiming it shorted employees on their pension payments by using outdated mortality data to calculate married couples’ benefits, according to a California federal court filing.

AT&T and the group of workers behind the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit filed a notice with the court Friday stating that they have struck a deal to end the dispute, and that they are in the process of finalizing terms. Details of the agreement have not been shared with the court.

The settlement would close the suit that the group of employees filed against AT&T in October 2020. ERISA requires that pension payments provided to single employees and married employees must be actuarially equivalent, but the workers claimed AT&T used mortality data that was 40 years old to convert the single life annuities to joint survivor annuities, which led to inaccurate payments.

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The workers are represented by Kai Richter, Michelle C. Yau, Daniel J. Sutter and Caroline Bressman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC; Peter K. Stris, Victor O’Connell, John Stokes, Colleen R. Smith and Rachana A. Pathak of Stris & Maher LLP; Todd Jackson and Nina Wasow of Feinberg Jackson Worthman & Wasow LLP; and Shaun P. Martin of the University of San Diego Law School.

Former Church of Scientology members asked a Florida federal judge to lift the stay on their trafficking claims against the church, arguing that the arbitration the parties attended was an unfair, opaque process controlled by the church. 

Plaintiffs Gawain and Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris asked U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Barber in a motion Thursday to reconsider his order staying their lawsuit and ordering them to first resolve their disputes internally with the organization before going to court. 

In the motion, the plaintiffs, who are former seagoing members of the church, said they made a good faith effort to arbitrate their claims under Scientology’s arbitration process. But the arbitrators said they would not apply the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which the plaintiffs claimed was violated, or state contract law regarding the validity of the arbitration agreements in question, according to the motion.

“Whatever leeway the law grants to arbitrators, Eleventh Circuit precedent is clear that it cannot condone a process that rejects the application of relevant substantive law and does not reach a resolution,” the plaintiffs said.

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The plaintiffs are represented by Gregory P. Hansel, Shana M. Solomon and Elizabeth F. Quinby of Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios Chtd. LLP, Shelby Leighton of Public Justice, Manuel J. Dominguez, Theodore Leopold, Agnieszka M. Fryszman and Brendan Schneiderman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Joseph C. Kohn and Zahra R. Dean of Kohn Swift & Graf PC and Warren A. Zimmerman of Warren A. Zimmerman PA.