Skip to main content

Lawsuit over Heartland Payment Systems Breach Is Dismissed

By Minara El-Rahman on December 14, 2009 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

CNET News reported that the lawsuit for Heartland Payment Systems breach has been dismissed. The lawsuit, covered in Findlaw's Common Law blog, was a class action suit over the loss of credit card information to hackers in 2008, and the company's subsequent handling of the data breach.

According to Heartland Payment Systems' official website, the company processes more than 11 million transactions a day, is the 5th largest payment processor in the United States and is the 9th largest  payment processor in the world.

When the company announced that there was a security breach, they announced it on the day of President Barack Obama's inauguration in spite of the fact that the company was aware of the breach a week prior to the announcement.

While Heartland Payment Systems did not announce any hard and fast numbers with regards to the breach, experts have estimated that the Heartland Payment Systems breach could have compromised over 100 million credit cards.

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted Heartland's motion to dismiss the lawsuit this past Monday because the court said that the plaintiffs failed to prove their allegations that company executives knew that Heartland Payment Systems had inadequate security and misled consumers about it. The lawsuit also claims that Heartland Payment Systems had not offered any compensation to affected consumers

The class action lawsuit named the company as well as Chairman and CEO Robert O. Carr, and President and Chief Financial Officer Robert H.B. Baldwin Jr. The company said the case was dismissed with prejudice.

Related Resources:

Copied to clipboard