At Reuters, reporter Alison Frankel has this story on a recent class-action settlement with Verizon. Verizon (as is typical of cellphone companies) requires customers to agree to arbitrate any disputes that may arise. The settlement avoids appellate review of Verizon’s effort to limit arbitrations to batches of 10 at a time, which, in situations where many customers have the same claim, would force many customers to wait years.
Frankel’s story also notes that the settlement agreement, reached in December, “received little attention at the time, perhaps because of a clause in the settlement agreement that barred class counsel from DeNittis, Osefchen, Prince and Hattis & Lukacs from issuing a press release or otherwise announcing the agreement to news organizations.” Seems like an effort by Verizon to depress customers’ claims. I hope that class counsel don’t agree to such restrictions in the future.
I have not evaluated the settlement and so cannot comment on whether it is fair and reasonable. But if you are a class member, the deadline to submit a claim is April 15. The process to submit a claim starts here.
