On Friday, July 13, parties in the Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Fee Litigation case filed a proposed settlement agreement valued at approximately $7.25 billion. The proposed settlement agreement includes $6.05 billion in damages in addition to an estimated $1.2 billion from a temporary, eight month, 10 basis point cut in credit card interchange fees.
FMI is not a named plaintiff in the suit, but several FMI member companies, as well as other companies in the food retail industry, are class or individual plaintiffs. More information from the class plaintiffs can be found in the press release from Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP, counsel for the class plaintiffs.
The class action lawsuit was first filed in 2005 by a class of seven million merchants against Visa, MasterCard and other big banks that accept credit cards. The lawsuit challenged the high credit card interchange fees that merchants are required to pay each time they swipe a card to complete a transaction.
FMI wants to serve as a resource to its members trying to understand the 140-page proposal, is collecting a list of questions about the proposal that our members want answered, and will try to get written responses to them. Send any questions to Jennifer Hatcher, jhatcher@fmi.org.
