Dec 21, 2021 | Blog
Recall Of Certain Foonf Convertible Child Seats Manufactured Prior To May 21, 2021 – Loose Pieces Of Foam Can Present A Choking Hazard To A Child, Increasing The Risk Of Injury
Manufacturer: Clek, Inc.
Components: CHILD SEAT, CLEK FOONF, CLEK FLLO
Potential Number of Units Affected: 150,599
Clek will provide a molded plastic insert that prevents access to the foam, along with instructions on how to attach it to the child seat, free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed in December 2021. Owners may contact Clek customer service at 1-866-656-2462. Owners may also contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or go to nhtsa.gov.
Source: United States Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Dec 21, 2021 | Blog, Data Breach
Southern Orthopaedic Associates, D/B/A Orthopaedic Institute of Western Kentucky, Suffers Data Breach
Southern Orthopaedic Associates, d/b/a Orthopaedic Institute of Western Kentucky (“Southern Orthopaedic” or “SOA”), recently filed a Data Breach Notification with the Office Of The Maine Attorney General.
SOA’s notification of the data event stated, among other things, that
[o]n or about July 8, 2021, SOA became aware of suspicious activity relating to an employee email account. SOA immediately launched an investigation to determine what may have happened. Working together with an outside computer forensics specialist, SOA determined that an unauthorized individual accessed several employee email accounts between June 24, 2021 and July 8, 2021. Because SOA was unable to determine which email messages in the accounts may have been viewed by the unauthorized actor, SOA reviewed the entire contents of the affected email accounts to identify what personal information was accessible to the unauthorized actor. This review was complete by October 21, 2021. After identifying the individuals who may have been impacted, [Southern Orthopaedic] worked to confirm current mailing addresses for the impacted individuals and prepare an accurate written notice of this incident.
The information that could have been subject to unauthorized access includes name, and Social Security Number. [Emphasis added.]
A copy of SOA’s notification of the data event can be viewed by clicking “Nature of the Data Event.”
Have You Been Impacted by A Data Breach?
If so, please complete the form on the right or contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., [email protected], for a free, no-obligation evaluation of potential legal claims.
Examples of the type of relief sought by data privacy class actions, include, but are not limited to, reimbursement of identity theft losses and of out-of-pocket costs paid by data breach victims for protective measures such as credit monitoring services, credit reports, and credit freezes; compensation for time spent responding to the breach; imposition of credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance, paid for by the defendant company; and improvements to the defendant company’s data security systems.
Data privacy class actions are brought on a contingent-fee basis; thus, plaintiffs and the class members do not pay out-of-pocket attorney’s fees or litigation costs. Subject to court approval, attorney’s fees and litigation costs are derived from the recovery obtained for the class.
Dec 20, 2021 | Blog
On December 20, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced fraud charges against five Russian nationals for engaging in a multi-year scheme to profit from stolen corporate earnings announcements obtained by hacking into the systems of two U.S.-based filing agent companies before the announcements were made public.
The filing agents assist publicly-traded companies with the preparation and filing of periodic reports with the SEC, including quarterly reports containing earnings information.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in Massachusetts, alleges that defendant Ivan Yermakov (“Yermakov”) used deceptive hacking techniques to access the filing agents’ systems and directly or indirectly provided not-yet-public corporate earnings announcements stolen from those systems to his co-defendants Vladislav Kliushin (“Kliushin”), Nikolai Rumiantcev (“Rumiantcev”), Mikhail Irzak (“Irzak”), and Igor Sladkov (“Sladkov”).
According to the complaint, from 2018 through 2020, the traders used 20 different brokerage accounts located in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Portugal to generate profits of at least $82 million using the stolen information to make trades before over 500 corporate earnings announcements. The defendants allegedly shared a portion of their enormous profits by funneling them through a Russian information technology company founded by Kliushin and for which Yermakov and Rumiantcev serve as directors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced criminal charges against the five defendants named in the SEC’s action and that defendant Vladislav Kliushin was extradited from Switzerland.
The SEC’s complaint charges each of the defendants with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and related SEC antifraud rules and seeks a final judgment ordering the defendants to pay penalties, return their ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, and enjoining them from committing future violations of the antifraud laws.
Source: SEC.gov
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C.
Dec 20, 2021 | Blog, Data Breach
Texas ENT Specialists – Hacking/IT Incident Affects More Than 530,000 Individuals
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal, reflects that Texas ENT Specialists, a healthcare provider, reported a data breach of its network server.
The company’s “Notice of Security Incident” stated that “[o]n October 19, 2021, Texas ENT learned that files containing patient information were subject to unauthorized access during a data security incident. With assistance from a third-party cybersecurity firm, [Texas ENT] determined that unauthorized parties gained access to our computer systems and took copies of Texas ENT files between August 9, 2021 and August 15, 2021. [Texas ENT] carefully reviewed those files and determined they contained patient names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and procedure codes used for billing purposes. A limited number of files also contained patient Social Security numbers. Importantly, there was no unauthorized access to Texas ENT’s electronic medical records system.” [Emphasis added.]
Have You Been Impacted by A Data Breach?
If so, please complete the form on the right or contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., [email protected], for a free, no-obligation evaluation of potential legal claims.
Examples of the type of relief sought by data privacy class actions, include, but are not limited to, reimbursement of identity theft losses and of out-of-pocket costs paid by data breach victims for protective measures such as credit monitoring services, credit reports, and credit freezes; compensation for time spent responding to the breach; imposition of credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance, paid for by the defendant company; and improvements to the defendant company’s data security systems.
Data privacy class actions are brought on a contingent-fee basis; thus, plaintiffs and the class members do not pay out-of-pocket attorney’s fees or litigation costs. Subject to court approval, attorney’s fees and litigation costs are derived from the recovery obtained for the class.
Dec 18, 2021 | Blog, Data Breach
Online Retailers Tackle Warehouse LLC, Running Warehouse LLC, Skate Warehouse LLC & Tennis Warehouse LLC Hacked – Customer Personal And Financial Data Information Stolen
The Office Of The Maine Attorney General’s online data breach notification portal reflects that 1,813,224 individuals, including Maine residents, were affected by an external system hacking data breach of four online sports equipment retail websites, which resulted in the acquisition of customer names or other personal identifiers in combination with financial account numbers, credit/debit card numbers (in combination with security code, access code, password or account PIN).
The data breach occurred on October 1, 2021, and was discovered on November 29, 2021.
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Wilderness Sports Warehouse, LLC, d/b/a Tackle Warehouse; Running Warehouse, LLC; Sports Warehouse, Inc., d/b/a Tennis Warehouse; & Skate Warehouse, LLC
On January 11, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia against the aforementioned online retailers for their alleged failure to properly secure and safeguard highly-valuable, protected Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”), including, without limitation, names, addresses, credit card and debit card numbers, expiration dates, and CV codes; alleged failure to comply with industry standards to protect information systems that contain PII; and alleged failure to provide adequate and prompt notice to Plaintiff and other Class Members that their PII had been accessed and compromised.
The complaint alleges that the named Defendants knew, or should have known, the importance of safeguarding the PII entrusted to Defendants and of the foreseeable consequences if its data security systems were breached. According to the complaint, the Defendants failed, however, to take adequate cyber security measures to prevent the data breach from occurring.
Have You Been Harmed By A Data Breach?
If so, please complete the form on the right or contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C., [email protected], for a free, no-obligation evaluation of potential legal claims.
Examples of the type of relief sought by data privacy class actions, include, but are not limited to, reimbursement of identity theft losses and of out-of-pocket costs paid by data breach victims for protective measures such as credit monitoring services, credit reports, and credit freezes; compensation for time spent responding to the breach; imposition of credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance, paid for by the defendant company; and improvements to the defendant company’s data security systems.
Data privacy class actions are brought on a contingent-fee basis; thus, plaintiffs and the class members do not pay out-of-pocket attorney’s fees or litigation costs. Subject to court approval, attorney’s fees and litigation costs are derived from the recovery obtained for the class.
Dec 17, 2021 | Antitrust, Blog
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. Is Investigating Whether Engineers Or Other Skilled Employees Of Various Aerospace Companies Were Harmed By Anticompetitive Hiring Practices, Including Aerospace Engineering Companies Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Belcan Engineering Group Limited Partnership; Cyient Inc. (Formerly InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; & Agilis Engineering, Inc.
If You Were Employed As An Engineer Or Other Skilled Employee At Any Time From 2011 To September 2019 At Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Cyient Inc. (Previously InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc., Or One Of Their Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries, You Are Encouraged To Contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. , John Kehoe, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 801, [email protected], [email protected], To Discuss The Firm’s Aerospace Antitrust Investigation Or Potential Legal Claims.
Six Aerospace Executives and Managers Indicted For Leading Roles In Labor Market Conspiracy That Limited Workers’ Mobility And Career Prospects
On December 16, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Bridgeport, Connecticut, returned an indictment charging a former manager of a major aerospace engineering company and five executives of outsource engineering suppliers (“Suppliers”) for participating in a long-running conspiracy to restrict the hiring and recruiting of employees among their respective companies. The conspiracy affected thousands of engineers and other skilled workers in the aerospace industry who perform services in the design, manufacturing and servicing of aircraft components for both commercial and military purposes.
According to the one-count felony indictment unsealed today in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, six individuals — Mahesh Patel (“Patel”), of Connecticut; Robert Harvey, of South Carolina; Harpreet Wasan, of Connecticut; Steven Houghtaling, of Connecticut; Tom Edwards, of Connecticut; and Gary Prus, of Florida — conspired with unnamed others to allocate employees by agreeing not to hire or solicit employees from each other’s companies.
This indictment is the first in an ongoing investigation into labor market allocation in the aerospace engineering services industry. Patel, described as a leader of the conspiracy given his position and authority as the Suppliers’ common customer, was previously charged by complaint. He was arrested and appeared before a federal magistrate judge on the charge last week, and was released on a $100,000 appearance bond. The remaining defendants are expected to appear before federal district courts in different districts this week.
According to the indictment, the defendants and co-conspirators recognized the mutual financial benefit of the conspiracy — namely, reducing the rise in labor costs that would occur when aerospace workers were free to find new employment in a competitive environment. Patel and certain other co-conspirators explicitly appealed to this financial benefit when communicating with each other about the agreement.
The maximum penalty under the Sherman Act for a conspiracy to restrain trade is 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of $1 million. The maximum fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either amount is greater than the statutory maximum fine.
Aerospace “No-Poach” Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit
On December 14, 2021, a class action complaint was filed in United States District Court for the District of Connecticut on behalf of engineers and other similarly skilled employees, based on alleged unlawful “no-poach” agreements among the aerospace engineering firms, which was intended to restrain competition in the relevant labor markets.
The Defendant aerospace-related companies named in the class action lawsuit (i.e., Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Belcan Engineering Group Limited Partnership; Cyient Inc.; Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc.) are major competitors for engineering services, and they compete with one another to attract, hire, and retain engineers and other skilled employees.
According to the complaint, beginning at least as early as 2011 and continuing through at least 2019, senior executives and managers at the Defendant companies entered into a conspiracy not to solicit, recruit, hire without prior approval, or otherwise compete for employees, including engineers and other skilled employees.
Allegedly, the Defendant companies agreed to restrict competition for their employees’ services with the purpose and effect of fixing, suppressing, and stabilizing wages, salaries, and benefits and restraining competition in the market for their employees’ services. Further, the Defendants’ agreement to fix, suppress, and stabilize wages, salaries and benefits also, according to the complaint, restricted their employees’ mobility to access better job opportunities.
To view a copy of the antitrust class action complaint, please click Aerospace Engineering Class Action Complaint.
If You Were Employed As An Engineer Or Other Skilled Employee At Any Time From 2011 To September 2019 At Pratt & Whitney; QuEST Global Services-NA, Inc.; Belcan Engineering Group, LLC; Cyient Inc. (Previously InfoTech); Parametric Solutions, Inc.; Agilis Engineering, Inc., Or One Of Their Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries, You Are Encouraged To Contact Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. , John Kehoe, Esq., (215) 792-6676, Ext. 801, [email protected], [email protected], To Discuss The Antitrust Investigation Or Potential Legal Claims.
