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Consumers whose information was potentially exposed during cyberattacks in 2018 at Bank of Montreal (BMO) and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) are a step closer to compensation after a judge approved two class action settlements.
A judge in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario has approved the class action settlements with BMO and CIBC on April 20, 2021, for a potential aggregate amount of more than $21.2 million and $1.77 million, respectively.
The data breaches affected 113,151 clients at BMO and 10,101 clients at Simplii Financial, an online consumer brand operated by the CIBC, according to Judge Robert Smith’s approval order.
Both settlements proposed categorizing Class Members according to the nature of the information compromised during the breaches.
Larger amounts were proposed for Class Members whose SIN and birthdates were compromised and/or posted online, compared to individuals who did not have that information accessed.
For instance, BMO clients who had their personal information posted online are expected to receive just more than $700, after attorneys’ fees and other costs are paid.
Class Members also can expect to be compensated for time they spent dealing with the fallout from the data breaches at a rate of $18 per hour. Each group will have a different cap on the number of hours they can claim.
Both BMO and CIBC had already compensated clients who had fraudulent transfers out of their bank accounts, according to Investment Executive. Those payouts cost BMO $6.85 million and CIBC $1.8 million.
In addition, the banks provided those affected free credit monitoring and identity theft protection, Investment Executive reported.
The Court noted that while there were a handful of objections to the BMO and CIBC settlements, a majority — 99 percent in the case of BMO — did not express any concerns.
Some Class Members were concerned their information could be posted online at some future date, and while that remains a possibility, the judge wrote, the parties believed to be responsible for the breaches have been arrested.
“I am satisfied that the proposed settlement agreement is fair, reasonable and in the best interest of the class,” Judge Smith wrote in his approval order.
Was your information compromised during the 2018 BMO and CIBC data breaches? Tell us about your experience in the comment section below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Jean-Marc Leclerc, Carsten Jensen, and Michael G. Robb.
The BMO and CIBC Data Breach Class Action Lawsuits are Mallette v. Bank of Montreal, File No. CV-18-76745-00CP, and Bannister v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, File No. CV-18-76456-00CP, both in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario.
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34 thoughts onJudge Approves BMO, CIBC Data Breach Class Action Settlements
I am a customer of both cibc and bmo
Please include me
My cibc account was hacked and used and they couldn’t stop it they just closed my account and charged me overdraft of over 800 dollars which I do not have overdraft and then it went against my credit please help
That sounds similar to what CIBC did to me! I had an obvious fraudulent charge go into my account through PayPal so immediately I went to PayPal and I managed to get them to reverse it and even though I should have had 24 hours to correct a charge like that it didn’t matter and Cibc charged me an nsf fee but then they charged me an nsf fee for being into my overdraft because of their fee and that kept going on and on charging nsf fees because of nsf fees and then next thing I knew it was over $1000 and then I had thought it was resolved so I wasn’t watching my account and they ended up taking over $500 of money from my account that was put in there from a couple refunds I had received, then in January they had sent it to collections for the other $500 and completely screwed me over, trying to start a business during Covid was hard enough but not being able to get even a loan because of a bank screwing up credit score it really really sucks and then all they sent me was a cheque for like $300 when they owe me a lot more than that and even harder they were obviously in the wrong and then sending the cheque proves that they still didn’t fix my credit they screwed up! Cibc is evil and shouldn’t be trusted
I am a cicb customer, and at least every second month since 2018 I need to go into the bank for a new card because I’m told my account has been compromised. They blame my phone company, koodo, that had a data breach around the same time
Please add me to this class action! Been with cibc since 2014. And I now get free credit score monitoring and identity monitioring! I was never told it was because my info was leaked
BMO client, considered my information has been compromised
I would like to be included in this class action as I am a BMO customers and could be affected.
I m a client of cibc but haven’t any idea if my information was compromised.
I too feel as though ive been a victim. I have free credit report monitoring and identity theft protection through BMO that i feel ive been compromised.
I am a client of CIBC and my account was recently hacked how do I join?
I’ve been with BMO for a long time and quite sure my information was compromised. Please add me to the suit.