Millions of business owners nationwide are now eligible for their share of a $5.54 billion class-action settlement with Visa and Mastercard. The suit claims that the two credit card giants violated antitrust laws because they set their own interchange fees. It also claims that Visa and Mastercard conspired in their actions, resulting in inflated merchant fees.
Some 18 million businesses, primarily convenience stores and grocers that accepted Visa or Mastercard branded payment cards from 2004 to 2019, have already begun receiving claim notices. According to the settlement notice, each claimant’s share of the $4.8 billion total award (net of legal and administrative fees) will be proportional to their total interchange fees paid during the class period. The exact figure will be calculated after the filing period ends.
“If everyone in the class files an accepted claim, we project they may recover approximately 1% of their interchange fees paid over the 15-year period,” Brian Blockovich, president and general counsel for Chicago Clearing Corporation (CCC), told Supermarket News. “So, a store with total interchange fees of $1 million through the period would receive about a $10,000 award payment.” CCC expects the settlement to take three to five years to complete.
Who’s Eligible for a Settlement?
Every merchant in the settlement class that has filed a valid claim, and has not already excluded itself from the class by the deadline, will be paid from the settlement fund. The specific language regarding who is eligible reads:
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.
Note that the settlement only affects merchants who paid the interchange fees in 2019 and before. Following the pandemic, Visa announced it was cutting its interchange fees for small businesses.
