Morgan Stanley Will Settle Data Security Lawsuit for $60M

Morgan Stanley, lawsuit, legal

Morgan Stanley will pay $60 million to settle a lawsuit from customers saying the bank had left their personal information exposed by not retiring outdated technology, Reuters writes.

The preliminary settlement was filed on behalf of around 15 million customers on Friday (Dec. 31).

The customers said that Morgan Stanley failed to decommission two wealth management data centers before the equipment, which was not encrypted and had customer data on it, was sold to third parties in 2016.

In addition, some older servers had gone missing after Morgan Stanley transferred them to another vendor in 2019 — though the bank later got them back.

Back in 2020, Morgan Stanley paid a $60 million civil fine to do away with a U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency accusation about the aforementioned incidents, including that the practices were not safe.

In other Morgan Stanley news, the company said last November that the upcoming Apple car will be the “ultimate EV bear case,” and expects it to affect stocks in other auto companies, despite the fact that it likely won’t be a car that lots of people own.

See also: Morgan Stanley: Apple Car Will be a ‘Shared Service’

Adam Jonas, the bank’s auto analyst, said a car “without steering wheel or pedals must be a ‘shared service’ and not an ‘owned car,’” Jonas said in a note on Nov. 19.

“To be clear, we do not believe consumers will own title to a fully autonomous car … but will engage in the service as a subscription or transport utility,” he said.

The car in question was being accelerated in development last year, with an eye toward a fully-driverless vehicle by 2025, a change from earlier versions of the project focused on different versions.

Last year, Morgan Stanley also said a digital euro could see a fall of 8% of consumer deposits from eurozone banks. The news came last summer while the European Central Bank was planning to go forward with research on how a digital euro could impact things.

Read more: Morgan Stanley Estimates 8 Pct of Bank Deposits Could Be Impacted by a Digital Euro