Over the last fifteen years, a series of class action lawsuits have been filed against Visa and MasterCard alleging various anticompetitive activities, including the International Fee Case, the VisaCheck/MasterMoney Case, and the Interchange Case. The first two have settled and all funds have been distributed to eligible claimants. The Interchange Case (In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation) was filed in 2005 and is slowly making its way through the same court that handled VisaCheck. Most of the pre-trial preparations are complete and the parties are waiting on a few key rulings from the court.
Interchange Case
In 2005, a group of more than 50 merchants filed a lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard and their member banks, alleging that their interchange fees violated antitrust laws. An interchange fee is paid by merchants for each retail transaction that uses a credit or debit card. The lawsuit charges that Visa and MasterCard, which had previously been found to have monopolistic ‘market power’, set the interchange fees at non-competitive levels – and significantly higher than are charged in other countries.
The lawsuit challenges the legality of interchange fees and involves substantially the same class of merchants as VisaCheck. If it settles, it’s possible that as with VisaCheck, merchants may be subject to strict and potentially tight deadlines in which to (1) challenge the settlement; (2) challenge the method for calculating benefits; and, (3) submit a claim. VisaCheck was very data intensive, and although no settlement has been reached yet, the Interchange Case may be similar in that regard.
Spectrum continues to monitor the progress of this case. If you have any questions about your eligibility to participate in the case, if and when a settlement is reached, please contact us for more information.
Visa/MasterCard Antitrust Settlement
In 2003, VISA and MasterCard agreed to pay $3.05 billion to merchants who accepted their branded cards from October 1992 through June 2003 to settle a lawsuit filed by Wal-Mart and other retailers. The lawsuit accused the credit card networks of forcing merchants who accepted credit cards to also accept their debit cards, overcharging for processing fees during that period. The final settlement payments were made to merchants in 2010.
Spectrum has helped thousands of companies recover their fair share in many different settlements. For information on how Spectrum can help you, please contact us at 415-392-5900 or email us.
