Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California has been appointed lead plaintiff in a securities class action related to a massive data breach that Marriott disclosed in November 2018. Partner Carol C. Villegas from Labaton Sucharow LLP will lead the Firm’s team.
The action alleges that Marriott International, a multinational company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and related lodging facilities around the world, and certain of its executives, made misleading and false statements about the security of customer data stored on the Starwood guest reservation database. Marriott acquired Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide in 2016 for $13 billion.
On November 30, 2018, Marriott issued a press release announcing that a data breach had affected up to 500 million Starwood customers, and that there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014. Upon news of the breach, Marriott’s stock fell over 5.5 percent, injuring Marriot shareholders.
The securities action has been consolidated with a related consumer class action in District of the Maryland captioned In re Marriott International, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation.