$7.25 Billion Settlement Reached in Credit Card Price-Fixing Case
After seven years of hard-fought litigation, and a lengthy mediation process, Visa, Mastercard and their member banks agreed to pay over $7 billion to settle a massive price-fixing case brought by a class of merchants in the United States.
SSH serves in a senior role on behalf of plaintiffs and has been intimately involved in the litigation since its filing in 2005.
The settlement provides a cash payment of $7.25 billion - the largest cash settlement by far of an antitrust case in U.S. history - along with injunctive relief and credit card rules changes that could be worth tens of billions of dollars. The rules changes will ultimately shift the competitive balance from one formerly dominated by the banks to the side of merchants and consumers, while achieving price transparency for credit card transactions. The settlement must be approved by the court in New York, which is not likely to happen until sometime in 2013.
