The following are important dates that will affect your rights:
- Deadline for Submitting a Claim: December 31, 2020. Detailed Instructions on submitting a claim can be found here.
- Deadline for Requesting Exclusion: September 2, 2020. If you ask to be excluded, your financial institution will not get any payment as part of this Settlement, and you cannot object to this Settlement. Your financial institution will not be legally bound by anything that happens in the Settlement and related proceedings. Your financial institution may be able to sue (or continue to sue) Equifax in the future. If you object to the Settlement and seek to exclude your financial institution, you will be deemed to have excluded your financial institution. Detailed instructions on how to exclude your financial institution from the Settlement can be found here.
- Deadline for Submitting an Objection: September 2, 2020. If your financial institution is a Settlement Class Member, you can object to the Settlement if you do not think it is fair, reasonable, or adequate. You can give reasons why you think the Court should not approve it. The Court will consider your views. If you both object to the Settlement and seek to exclude your financial institution, your financial institution will be deemed to have excluded itself. Detailed instructions for objecting to the settlement can be found here.
- Deadline for Objectors to File Response to Final Approval Motion and Fee Application: October 5, 2020. Class Counsel has a deadline of August 19, 2020, to file a motion for final approval of the Settlement and a motion for attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses and for Service Awards. Objectors, if any, have until October 5, 2020 to file any response to Class Counsel’s motions.
- Final Approval Hearing: October 22, 2020. The Court will hold a Final Approval Hearing on October 22, 2020, at 2:00 p.m., in Courtroom 2108 before Chief United States District Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse, 75 Ted Turner Drive, SW, Atlanta, GA 30303-3309. This hearing date and time may be moved. Please refer to the Settlement Status page for notice of any changes. At the Final Approval Hearing, the Court will consider, among other things, whether the Settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate; how much Plaintiffs’ lawyers will receive as attorneys’ fees and expenses; and whether to approve Service Awards to the Settlement Class Representatives. If there are objections, the Court will consider them. The Court will listen to people at the hearing who file in advance a timely notice of their intention to appear (see instructions here). At or after the Final Approval Hearing, the Court will decide whether to approve the Settlement. There is no deadline by which the Court must make its decision.