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 Visa,
MasterCard lose ruling versus retailers over credit card fees
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[July 19, 2014]
By Andrew Longstreth
NEW YORK - A federal judge declined on
Friday to dismiss antitrust lawsuits filed against Visa Inc and
MasterCard Inc by retailers who opted out of an estimated $5.7
billion class action settlement in 2012 over transaction fees. |
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 Retailers such as Target Corp and Amazon.com Inc have accused Visa
and MasterCard of fixing the fees charged to merchants each time
their customers used credit or debit cards. They also alleged the
two companies prevented merchants from steering customers to cheaper
forms of payment.
U.S. District Judge John Gleeson of Brooklyn said on Friday the
lawsuits could proceed, according to Jeffrey Shinder, an attorney
for some of the retailers.
Shinder declined further comment.
In December, Gleeson approved an estimated $5.7 billion settlement
between the two credit card companies and a nationwide class of
merchants over similar allegations.
But thousands of retailers, including some of the biggest in the
United States such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, opted out of the
settlement, complaining it was not adequate.
Those companies argued the settlement offered meaningless reforms
that would not help them control the costs of accepting credit
cards. Many of those retailers who objected to the settlement filed
their own lawsuits.
A spokesman for MasterCard said in a statement that Gleeson's ruling
on Friday was at earliest stage of the case.
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"We look forward to putting this matter behind us and continuing to
work productively with the merchant community," he said.
A Visa spokesman had no immediate comment.
The case is Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount
Antitrust Litigation - Opt Out Cases, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of New York, No. 14-01720.
(Reporting by Andrew Longstreth. Editing by Andre Grenon)
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