MasterCard-Visa Settlement With Retailers Is Overturned
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A federal appeals court has overturned a historic antitrust settlement between retailers and Visa and MasterCard, reviving more than a decade of legal battles over processing fees, according to a report in The New York Times.
“The United States Court of Appeals in Manhattan said that the lawyers represented retailers with competing interests in the settlement, which was once valued at $7.25 billion, one of the largest in antitrust history,” wrote Rachel Abrams. “The judges pushed the suit back to a lower court.”
In a 2005 lawsuit, retailers accused credit card providers of scheming to fix the price of processing fees, the money the card companies charge retailers for each transaction, and a settlement was reached in 2012. But the court in Manhattan found that merchants had been “inadequately” represented in the settlement.
