$31M Visa, MasterCard Antitrust Class Action Settlement Upheld

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Last week, a California appeals court upheld a $31 million settlement that will resolve two consolidated class action lawsuits that allege Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. implemented anti-competitive credit and debit card policies, finding a revised class action settlement agreement properly takes the claims from a second action into account.

Visa and MasterCard were initially established as nonprofit joint ventures, and remained as such until recently. They were operated by member banks for the purpose of processing debit and credit card transactions. However, the payment card companies have come under fire for allegedly engaging in anticompetitive conduct.

Until 2004, Visa and MasterCard prohibited member banks from issuing American Express or Discover cards and required merchants who accepted their credit cards to also accept debit cards. Visa and MasterCard were sued by a group of retail stores in 1996, alleging that the payment card companies violated federal antitrust law because the requirement that retailers accept both credit and debit cards constituted a tying arrangement. This litigation was settled in 2003, and the order approving the settlement was approved in 2005.

In 2000, plaintiff Richard Johns filed a consumer class action lawsuit in California state court, challenging the tying policies. Similar class action lawsuits were filed after the settlement of the federal tying case. The California class action lawsuits took issue with the inflated fees retailers were forced to incur for processing debit card transactions. These class action lawsuits were consolidated before a San Francisco superior court judge.

The federal government also filed an antitrust enforcement action against the payment card companies, challenging their policy of excluding retailers from accepting payment cards other than Visa or MasterCard. A judgment was issued against Visa and MasterCard, and the judgment was affirmed in 2003.

In 2004, James Attridge filed a class action lawsuit in California state court that took issue with the exclusion policies. Visa and MasterCard agreed to settle both California class action lawsuits by paying $31 million into an escrow fund. This class action settlement was initially approved in 2010. However, objectors complained that the trial court should not have included Attridge’s claims within the scope of the release.

In January 2012, the appeals court ruled that a trial court failed to make a determination about whether the original class action settlement’s terms offered adequate compensation for Attridge’s claims. The parties subsequently submitted a revised class action settlement, and that deal was approved in April 2013. On Thursday, the court found that the revised settlement addressed the issue and was worthy of approval.

“Class counsel represented to the trial court that in their view, the compensation to the class was adequate to reflect the value of the plaintiffs’ claims, including the Attridge claims,” the appellate court wrote. “Moreover, the trial court expressly discussed the value of the Attridge claims, and took that value into account, when determining whether the revised settlement was fair and adequate.”

Johns is represented by Craig Carter Corbitt of Zelle Hoffman Voelbel & Mason LLP and Kimberly Ann Kralowec of the Kralowec Law Group. Attridge is represented by Lingel Hart Winters.

The Visa/MasterCard Class Action Lawsuit is Richard Johns, et al. v. Visa USA Inc., et al., Case No. A138984, in the Court of Appeal for the State of California, First Appellate District, Division Four.