Visa & MasterCard Settle Merchants’ Interchange Lawsuit

Visa, MasterCard and some of the biggest U.S. banks agreed to a settlement of at least $6.05 billion with retailers in a price-fixing case over credit- card interchange fees, according to a court filing.

The total value of the settlement is $7.25 billion on behalf of a class of about 7 million merchants in the U.S. that accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards and debit cards, a law firm for the merchants, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP, said in a statement.

Visa, the biggest bank-card network, had $4.28 billion in uncommitted funds set aside to cover litigation at the end of March. Photograph: Tetra/Getty ImagesVisa, the world’s biggest payments network, said its share of the settlement filed today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, was about $4.4 billion. Visa said the proposed settlement payments, including costs incurred by MasterCard Inc. (MA) and card- issuing banks, would be about $6.6 billion. That amount would include about $525 million for individual claims.

“We believe settling this case is in the best interests of all parties,” Visa Chief Executive Officer Joseph W. Saunders said today in a statement.

The agreement follows a seven-year legal battle with U.S. retailers that accused the two largest payment networks of conspiring with banks to fix swipe fees, or interchange.

Posted by Karl Kaluza on July 13, 2012 at 5:41 PM under
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