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Judge says retailer fee complaints vs. Visa, MasterCard can move forward

A US District Court judge has ruled that retailers who opted out of last year's settlement with Visa and MasterCard over surcharge fees may sue the card companies separately.

July 25, 2014

More than 30 retailers who opted out of last December's class act settlement with MasterCard and Visa have been granted permission, byU.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson, to sue the major card companies individually.

The companies — most notably, Macy's, Target, and Walmart — are seeking billions from the card giants who they say bilked the merchants out of billions in ATM fees, a Bloomberg blog post said.

Most of the retailers who opted out of the settlement prior to its approval said that the payout of $7.5 billion by Visa and MasterCard was insufficient as compensation for hundreds of billions in unfair fees the retailers had paid.

Additionally, the retailers objected to a clause in the settlement that required them to relinquish all rights to further legal action over the card companies' fees.

According to Bloomberg, the card companies argued that retailer claims should be dismissed because retailers don’t pay fees to the banks that issue Visa and MasterCard branded cards. Rather the fees are deducted from payments merchants receive after processing.

The case is In Re: Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation — Opt Out Cases, 1:14-md-01720, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).


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