Visa - Mastercard Settlement
Visa, MasterCard, and their respective member banks, allegedly engaged in anti-competitive practices that artificially increased the interchange fees that all merchants pay. As a result, a $6 billion settlement will provide payments to merchants that accepted Visa and MasterCard at any time between January 1, 2004 and January 25, 2019.
SUMMARY
- Visa/Mastercard and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they set interchange fees.
- Visa/Mastercard and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they imposed and enforced rules that limited merchants from steering their customers to other payment methods. Those rules include so-called no-surcharge rules, no-discounting rules, honor-all-cards rules, and certain other rules. Doing so insulated them from competitive pressure to lower the interchange fees.
- Visa and Mastercard conspired together about some of the business practices challenged.
- Visa/Mastercard and its respective member banks continued in those activities despite the fact that Visa changed its corporate structure and became a publicly owned corporation after this case was filed.
- The Defendants’ conduct caused the merchants to pay excessive interchange fees for accepting Visa and Mastercard cards.
- But for Defendants’ conduct there would have been no interchange fee or those fees would have been lower.
AM I PART OF THIS SETTLEMENT?
If you received a Notice in the mail, the Defendants’ records show that you are probably in the Rule 23(b)(3) Settlement Class, consisting of:
All persons, businesses, and other entities that have accepted any Visa-Branded Cards and/or Mastercard-Branded Cards in the United States at any time from January 1, 2004 to January 25, 2019, except that the Rule 23(b)(3) Settlement Class shall not include (a) the Dismissed Plaintiffs, (b) the United States government, (c) the named Defendants in this Action or their directors, officers, or members of their families, or (d) financial institutions that have issued Visa-Branded Cards or Mastercard-Branded Cards or acquired Visa-Branded Card transactions or Mastercard-Branded Card transactions at any time from January 1, 2004 to January 25, 2019
HOW MUCH MONEY WILL I GET ?
It cannot be known at this time the payment amount that valid claimants could receive.
WON'T THEY JUST SEND MY REFUND TO ME ?
No. A claim must be filed in order to receive your refund.
- Claim forms are being delivered and are available online beginning December 1, 2023.
- Class Members need not sign up for third-party service in order to participate in any monetary relief.
- No-cost assistance is available from the Claims Administrator and Class Counsel during the claims-filing period.
- For complete details please visit the Official Court Approved Website at http://www.
paymentcardsettlement.com.