During a hearing in front of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Thursday, the attorney for Target Corp. supported the placement of class action lawsuits related to the 2013 data security in the company’s home state of Minnesota.

More than 100 lawsuits have been filed on behalf of consumers, whose information was compromised, and financial institutions, which had to cover costs of reissuing cards and reimbursing consumers. The retail giant revealed Dec. 19 that about 40 million debit and credit card numbers were compromised as was the personal information of as many as 70 million customers.

Rebekah Kaufman, Target’s lead counsel, said that despite cases being filed in 39 districts, there was a “substantial connection” to Minnesota ( Fulton County Daily Report March 31). The company’s information technology department is located in Minneapolis, as are many witness and documents.

Plaintiffs attorney Karl Cambronne also argued that Minnesota should be home to the case because of a state statute that prohibits merchants or businesses from retaining magnetic-strip information captured during a transaction.

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