The combined value of the 10 largest class-action settlements in 2025 exceeded $70 billion for the first time on record, according to a new analysis by law firm Duane Morris. In fact, total settlement amounts across all areas of litigation approached nearly $80 billion.
This marks the fourth consecutive year in which overall class-action settlements have surpassed $40 billion.
Gerald L. Maatman, co-author of the Duane Morris Class Action Review and chair of the firm’s Class Action Defense Group, described the scale of the figures as extraordinary.
“To put this into context, the total exceeds the annual budgets of several U.S. states and is larger than the gross domestic product of more than half of the countries in the world,” Maatman said. “At the same time, these enormous outcomes are drawing top-tier talent to the plaintiffs’ bar and creating strong incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers to file more cases and pursue increasingly sophisticated litigation strategies.”
Maatman added that corporate boards, investors, and insurers need to take a proactive approach to managing class-action risk. He has analyzed class-action litigation trends annually since 2003.
One area drawing heightened attention from plaintiffs’ attorneys is data privacy. High settlement values in privacy-related class actions have encouraged the plaintiffs’ bar to expand its focus to technologies such as session replay tools, website chat functions, and tracking pixels.
“The plaintiffs’ bar continues to follow a familiar formula: combine widely used modern technologies with decades-old statutes that allow for statutory damages on a per-violation basis,” Duane Morris noted. “This creates disproportionately large financial exposure for routine business practices.”
The report shows that data privacy class-action filings in 2025 exceeded 1,800 cases, representing more than 25% growth compared with 2024 and an increase of over 200% since 2022.
Based on a nearly 750-page analysis reviewing more than 1,761 court decisions from the past year, the report found that judges continue to approve class actions at a high rate. In 2025, courts granted 68% of class-certification motions. During the same period, plaintiffs filed more than 13,000 class-action lawsuits in federal courts alone—an average of more than 36 new filings per day.
The review characterizes the rise in class-action filings as a “substantial” increase from 2024 and emphasizes that such lawsuits are no longer isolated events but instead represent a persistent feature of the legal landscape.
“With the traditional arbitration defense increasingly under pressure, expanding circuit splits that encourage forum shopping, and the continued growth of Private Attorneys General Act claims, the risks facing class-action defense continue to multiply,” said Jennifer A. Riley, a Duane Morris partner, co-author of the review, and vice chair of the firm’s Class Action Defense Group.
Together, the findings suggest that class-action litigation remains a growing and evolving challenge for businesses, with no indication that the pace or scale of settlements is likely to slow in the near future.