Sony Pictures has reached a tentative settlement with eight former employees over the Culver City studio’s alleged failure to protect the personal information of its workforce from computer hackers, according to a court filing today.
Sony and its former employees have “reached an agreement in principle to settle all of the claims” of the proposed class-action lawsuit, “subject to final documentation, which will be submitted for the court’s approval,” according to the filing by the plaintiffs’ lawyers, which did not reveal terms of the settlement.
A request for comment to Sony’s attorney was not immediately answered.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles in December — a month after the studio’s computer system was hacked — on behalf of former and current employees alleging that Sony ignored warnings that its system was prone to attack.
Hackers began releasing sensitive data from Sony computers after the studio’s security breach became public on Nov. 24.
A group calling itself Guardians of Peace released data including thousands of pages of emails from studio chiefs, salaries of top executives, and Social Security numbers of 47,000 current and former employees.
The cyberattack exposed employees to identity theft, embarrassed executives and celebrities with the release of off-color emails and crippled the studio’s digital infrastructure.
Federal authorities said North Korea took the action in response to the studio’s film “The Interview,” a dark comedy depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
The studio initially canceled the planned opening of the film, but later went ahead with the release, both in theaters and on various Internet streaming services.
