Item 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Remaining Matters Related to 2017 Cybersecurity Incident

Canadian Class Actions. Five putative Canadian class actions, four of which are on behalf of a national class of approximately 19,000 Canadian consumers, are pending against us in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. Each of the proposed Canadian class actions asserts a number of common law and statutory claims seeking monetary damages and other related relief in connection with a material cybersecurity incident in 2017. In addition to seeking class certification on behalf of Canadian consumers whose personal information was allegedly impacted by the 2017 cybersecurity incident, in some cases, plaintiffs also seek class certification on behalf of a larger group of Canadian consumers who had contracts for subscription products with Equifax around the time of the incident or earlier and were not impacted by the incident. The Ontario class action has been certified in part but is otherwise at a preliminary stage. All other purported class actions are at preliminary stages or stayed.

FCA Investigation. The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) opened an enforcement investigation against our U.K. subsidiary, Equifax Limited, in October 2017 in connection with the 2017 cybersecurity incident. We received a notice with the FCA's findings on October 13, 2023, and paid a penalty of $13.5 million to resolve the matter.

CFPB Matters

In December 2021, we received a Civil Investigative Demand (a “CID”) from the CFPB as part of its investigation into our consumer disputes process in order to determine whether we have followed the FCRA's requirements for the proper handling of consumer disputes. The CID requests the production of documents and answers to written questions. We are cooperating with the CFPB in its investigation and providing responses and information on an ongoing basis.

In January 2023, the CFPB informed us that its enforcement division will be investigating our previously-disclosed coding issue identified within a legacy server environment in the U.S. that impacted how some credit scores were calculated during a three-week period in 2022. We are cooperating with the CFPB in its investigation.

In July 2023, we received a CID from the CFPB as part of its investigation into data accuracy and dispute handling at our Workforce Solutions business unit in order to determine whether we have followed the FCRA's requirements. The CID requests the production of documents and answers to written questions. We are cooperating with the CFPB in its investigation and providing responses and information on an ongoing basis.

At this time, we are unable to predict the outcome of these CFPB investigations, including whether the investigations will result in any actions or proceedings against us.

Other

Equifax has been named as a defendant in various other legal actions, including administrative claims, regulatory matters, government investigations, class actions and other litigation arising in connection with our business. Some of the legal actions include claims for substantial compensatory or punitive damages or claims for indeterminate amounts of damages. We believe we have defenses to and, where appropriate, will contest many of these matters. Given the number of these matters, some are likely to result in adverse judgments, penalties, injunctions, fines or other relief. We may explore potential settlements before a case is taken through trial because of the uncertainty and risks inherent in the litigation process.

For information regarding our accounting for legal contingencies, see Note 6 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8 of this report.