Published
August 6, 2026
This settlement resolves a securities class action accusing hard drive maker Seagate Technology Holdings of hiding how much of its business came from sales to Huawei that allegedly broke U.S. export rules — claims Seagate and two of its executives deny, and that no court has ruled on. If you bought Seagate common stock between September 14, 2020 and April 19, 2023, you can claim a share of $175 million by October 19, 2026.
Current Status
Claims are open. The claim form must be postmarked, or submitted online, no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on October 19, 2026. The deadline to exclude yourself or to object is October 27, 2026. The court has not yet approved the settlement: the Settlement Fairness Hearing is scheduled for November 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time before Judge Rita F. Lin in the Northern District of California. No payment date has been announced, and none can be, because money is distributed only after the court approves the settlement, any appeals are resolved, and claims processing finishes. If you traded Seagate common stock during the class period, the step to take now is to pull your brokerage records and file.
Status
Claims Open
settlement hearing November 17, 2026 · not yet approved
Claim Deadline
October 19, 2026
11:59 p.m. Pacific Time online · postmarked by the same date if mailed
Estimated Payout
~$1.03 per share
estimate only · before court-approved fees and expenses, which the notice estimates at about $0.26 per share · payments are pro rata and nothing is distributed below $10
Proof Required
Yes
trade confirmations or brokerage account statements for every reported transaction and holding
What Changed Recently?
The parties reached this settlement in the middle of a contested case, not at the end of one. Seagate's motion to dismiss the operative complaint was granted in part and denied in part on May 12, 2025, the company answered in June 2025, and discovery followed. Plaintiffs moved for class certification on December 16, 2025; that motion was still pending when the deal came together.A first mediation with David M. Murphy of Phillips ADR Enterprises on November 5, 2025 produced nothing. The parties met with the same mediator again on March 21, 2026, again without agreement, but talks continued and led to a $175 million cash deal memorialized in a term sheet executed as of April 20, 2026. The Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement is dated May 29, 2026 and was amended June 29, 2026. A federal court has since authorized notice to the class, which is why the claim window is open now.
The court has not decided the case in favor of either side. Defendants deny the claims, deny any wrongdoing or violation of law, and deny that their alleged conduct caused the class any harm or damages. The settlement is not an admission of guilt or wrongdoing.
What the Case Alleged
Seagate is one of the world's two largest makers of hard disk drives. The complaint alleged that Seagate, its chief executive Dr. William Mosley and its chief financial officer Gianluca Romano misled investors by concealing the magnitude of the company's sales to Huawei — a company on the U.S. government's restricted-entity list — in alleged violation of U.S. export laws, and that Seagate's profitability during the class period rested largely on those sales.The backdrop is a matter of public record. In April 2023 the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security announced a $300 million civil penalty against Seagate Technology LLC and a Singapore affiliate under a settlement agreement resolving allegations that they shipped more than 7.4 million foreign-produced hard drives, worth roughly $1.1 billion, to Huawei entities across 429 transactions between August 2020 and September 2021 without a license, after the Foreign Direct Product Rule had been extended to cover Huawei. It was the largest stand-alone administrative penalty in the agency's history, payable in quarterly installments of $15 million over five years, and it came with audit obligations and a suspended denial order. The securities case that produced this settlement is a separate, private lawsuit about what investors were told, not a government enforcement action.
None of the securities allegations was tested at trial. All defendants deny them, and no court has found any defendant liable.
Who Qualifies?
The Settlement Class covers all persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired common stock of Seagate Technology Holdings plc from September 14, 2020 through April 19, 2023, inclusive, and were allegedly damaged as a result. Seagate common stock trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker STX, with CUSIP G7997R103 (previously G7945M107).You are not a Settlement Class Member if:
- you are, or were, an officer or director of Seagate, or an immediate family member of one;
- you are the legal representative, heir or assign of an excluded person;
- you owned Seagate common stock solely through a mutual fund during the class period;
- you sold Seagate common stock during the class period but never purchased or acquired it during that window;
- you are the presiding judge, the judge's staff, or an immediate family member of either.
How Much Can You Get?
The settlement creates a $175,000,000 cash fund plus any interest it earns. After deduction of court-approved attorneys' fees and litigation expenses, notice and administration costs, taxes and any other court-approved expense, the remainder — the Net Settlement Fund — is divided among claimants whose forms are accepted.The notice gives one headline estimate: about $1.03 per eligible share, assuming a claim is submitted for every eligible share, before deductions. Lead Counsel will ask the court for attorneys' fees of up to 25% of the fund plus litigation expenses of up to $1.3 million, which together the notice estimates at roughly $0.26 per eligible share if the court awards the full request. Notice and administration costs are estimated at $679,000, and the class representatives may seek reimbursement awards totaling no more than $75,000.
Treat the $1.03 as what it is: an average across a hypothetical in which everyone files, not a per-share entitlement. Your actual payment is a pro rata share of the Net Settlement Fund, set by your Recognized Claim relative to every other claimant's, so a low claim rate raises individual payouts and a high one lowers them. Two hard limits also apply. If your overall class-period trading produced a Market Gain rather than a loss, your Recognized Claim is zero. And if your calculated share comes to less than $10.00, no check is issued at all — those dollars are redistributed to claimants above the threshold.
The Trap: Selling Before March 8, 2022 Means a Zero Claim
This is the detail most likely to surprise an otherwise eligible investor, and it is worth checking before you spend time on the form.Being inside the class period is not enough on its own. The Plan of Allocation compensates losses tied to four alleged corrective disclosures, reflected in Seagate's price moves on March 8, 2022, July 22, 2022, October 26, 2022 and April 20, 2023. To have a compensable loss you generally had to still be holding the shares through at least one of those dates. The plan says so directly: any share purchased during the class period and sold before the close of trading on March 7, 2022 has a Recognized Loss Amount of $0.00.
So an investor who bought in 2021 and sold in January 2022 at a real loss is a class member, is bound by the release, and still recovers nothing here. That is not a drafting error — it reflects the securities-law principle that a recoverable loss has to be caused by the disclosure of the allegedly misrepresented information rather than by ordinary market movement.
For shares that do qualify, the calculation turns on the alleged artificial inflation per share on the day you bought versus the day you sold. Those figures come from the notice's Table A:
| Purchase or sale date | Alleged artificial inflation per share |
|---|---|
| September 14, 2020 – October 22, 2020 | $1.45 |
| October 23, 2020 – January 21, 2021 | $3.01 |
| January 22, 2021 – April 22, 2021 | $4.82 |
| April 23, 2021 – July 20, 2021 | $13.41 |
| July 21, 2021 – October 21, 2021 | $7.79 |
| October 22, 2021 – March 7, 2022 | $9.55 |
| March 8, 2022 – July 21, 2022 | $4.72 |
| July 22, 2022 – October 25, 2022 | $1.45 |
| October 26, 2022 – April 19, 2023 | $1.00 |
| April 20, 2023 onwards | $0.00 |
What Proof Is Required?
Documentation is mandatory for every transaction and holding you report, and missing paperwork is the most common reason a securities claim stalls. Acceptable proof is copies of trade confirmations, brokerage account statements, or an authorized statement from your broker or other financial institution containing the same transactional and holding information. If you no longer have those records, the claim form tells you to obtain copies from your broker.The reporting window is wider than the class period. You have to state your holdings as of the opening of trading on September 14, 2020; every purchase or acquisition from September 14, 2020 through April 19, 2023; total purchases from April 20 through July 18, 2023; every sale from September 14, 2020 through July 18, 2023; and your holdings at the close on July 18, 2023. Report transactions whether they made or lost money — omitting any of them can get the claim rejected. Do not send original documents, and do not highlight anything on the form or the attachments.
File a separate claim form for each legal entity or separately managed account; an individual should not combine IRA trades with trades held in their own name. The form is signed under penalty of perjury. Institutional filers with large transaction volumes can request the mandatory electronic filing format from the administrator through the official settlement website. Whichever route you use, the administrator acknowledges receipt by mail within 60 days, so treat that acknowledgment — not the act of submitting — as confirmation your claim is on file.
What Is the Deadline?
Claim forms must be postmarked, or submitted online, no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on October 19, 2026. A Settlement Class Member who misses that deadline is barred from any payment but remains bound by the release, unless the court orders otherwise or Plaintiffs' Counsel exercise their discretion to excuse a late filing.Two other dates fall the following week, and they are not the same deadline. To exclude yourself from the class — the only way to keep the right to sue Seagate separately over these claims — your request must be received by October 27, 2026. Objections to the settlement, the Plan of Allocation, or the fee and expense request must be filed, postmarked or submitted online by that same October 27, 2026 date. You can object and still file a claim; opting out means no payment.
How Do You Take Action?
File on the official settlement website, Seagate Securities Litigation, administered by Strategic Claims Services under the court's direction. Filing is free, and you do not need a lawyer to do it.In practice: pull your brokerage records for the full window from September 14, 2020 through July 18, 2023 before you start; list every purchase, acquisition and sale in that window along with your opening and closing holdings; upload the supporting documents; and complete the process through to the confirmation screen. The online filer emails a confirmation with a Form ID within a few minutes — keep it, because you need that Form ID to amend anything later. The site also hosts the downloadable claim form, the opt-out form, the objection form, and the settlement documents.
What Happens Next?
The Settlement Fairness Hearing is set for November 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time before Judge Rita F. Lin, in Courtroom 4 on the 17th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, with remote access by Zoom videoconference. At that hearing the court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, whether the Plan of Allocation should be approved, and whether to grant the fee and expense request. The court can change the date, time or format without another notice being mailed, so check the official website before relying on it.Approval alone does not release money. Payments follow only after the approval order becomes final, any appeals are resolved, and the administrator finishes processing claims. The notice asks class members to be patient, and says plainly that the claims process takes substantial time. No payment date had been announced as of August 6, 2026.
If money remains six months after the initial distribution, the administrator may redistribute it to claimants who cashed their first checks and would receive at least $10.00, repeating as long as that stays cost-effective. Any final remainder is to be contributed to the University of Miami School of Law Investor Rights Clinic. Approval of the settlement is independent of approval of the Plan of Allocation, so the court could modify or reject the allocation formula without unwinding the settlement itself; any such order would be posted on the official website.
Sources and Verification
• Official settlement website, online claim form, opt-out form and objection form — Seagate Securities Litigation, administered by Strategic Claims Services• Notice of (I) Pendency of Class Action and Proposed Settlement; (II) Settlement Fairness Hearing; and (III) Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Litigation Expenses (class definition, $175,000,000 fund, the $1.03 and $0.26 per-share estimates, deadlines, Plan of Allocation and inflation tables) — embedded below
• Proof of Claim and Release Form, including the documentation requirements and the September 14, 2020 – July 18, 2023 reporting window — available on the official settlement website
• Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement dated May 29, 2026, as amended June 29, 2026 — available on the official settlement website
• In re Seagate Technology Holdings plc Securities Litigation, No. 3:23-cv-03431-RFL, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Hon. Rita F. Lin), including the procedural history recited in the notice
• U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security — April 2023 Order and Settlement Agreement imposing a $300 million penalty on Seagate Technology LLC and Seagate Singapore International Headquarters Pte. Ltd., as disclosed by Seagate in its SEC Form 10-K for fiscal 2023
Questions
I bought Seagate stock during the class period but sold it in 2021. Do I get anything?
No. Under the proposed Plan of Allocation, any share sold before the close of trading on March 7, 2022 has a Recognized Loss Amount of $0.00. The plan compensates losses tied to four alleged corrective disclosures dated March 8, 2022, July 22, 2022, October 26, 2022 and April 20, 2023, so you generally had to still be holding through at least one of them. You are still a Settlement Class Member and still bound by the release, but you would recover nothing.
I owned Seagate only through a mutual fund. Can I file?
No. The notice specifically excludes anyone who owned Seagate common stock solely through a mutual fund during the class period. The fund itself may be a class member and may file on its own behalf, but an individual fund shareholder did not purchase the stock and cannot claim. The same exclusion applies to anyone who sold Seagate stock during the class period without also purchasing or acquiring it during that window.
Are Seagate options covered by this settlement?
No. Option contracts are not securities eligible to participate in this settlement — only Seagate common stock is. If you acquired or sold Seagate common stock by exercising an option, the exercise date counts as the purchase or sale date and the exercise price counts as the purchase or sale price. Short sales and the purchases that cover them carry a Recognized Loss Amount of zero.
Why does the claim form ask about trades after April 19, 2023?
Because of the PSLRA's 90-day look-back rule. Federal law caps damages by reference to the mean trading price over the 90 days after the corrective information reaches the market, which here runs April 20 through July 18, 2023. The mean closing price for Seagate common stock over that window was $60.30. You have to report purchases, sales and holdings through July 18, 2023 so the Claims Administrator can apply that cap, even though shares bought after April 19, 2023 are not themselves eligible.
What if I came out ahead on Seagate overall during the class period?
Then your Recognized Claim is zero. The Claims Administrator compares your total purchase amount against your total sales proceeds plus a $57.08 holding value for each class-period share still held at the close on April 19, 2023. If that math produces a Market Gain, your claim is valued at zero and you remain bound by the settlement. If it produces a Market Loss smaller than your Recognized Claim, your claim is capped at the Market Loss.
Is there a minimum payment?
Yes. The Plan of Allocation states that if an Authorized Claimant's Distribution Amount calculates to less than $10.00, no distribution is made to that claimant, and those funds go instead to claimants whose share is $10.00 or more. The same $10.00 floor applies to any later re-distribution of money left in the fund six months after the initial payout.
Official Settlement Notice
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
$175,000,000
estimated $1.03 per eligible share before court-approved fees and expenses
Case Title
In re Seagate Technology Holdings plc Securities Litigation
Case Number
3:23-cv-03431-RFL
Court
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California — Hon. Rita F. Lin
Class Period
September 14, 2020 – April 19, 2023
both dates inclusive · Seagate common stock only (Nasdaq: STX) — options are not eligible
Settlement Hearing
November 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. PT
in person in San Francisco and by Zoom — the link is on the official settlement website
Administrator
Strategic Claims Services
Official Website
Seagate Securities Litigation
