$197.5M Visa, Mastercard settlement to resolve ATM price-fixing claims

Visa Mastercard settlement overview: 

• Who: Visa and Mastercard agreed to a $197.5 million settlement. 
• Why: Consumers accused Visa and Mastercard of ATM price-fixing.
• Where: The Visa and Mastercard settlement came in federal court in the District of Columbia.

Consumers reached a $197.5 million settlement with Visa and Mastercard over ATM price-fixing claims.

The settlement comes after $66.74 million in previously approved settlements with Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

The lawsuit alleged the banks colluded to set prices for ATM fees nationwide. 

The plaintiffs say the Visa and Mastercard settlement represents between 17.3% and 28.5% of the total damages that could be received if the plaintiffs prevailed at trial. The total settlement amounts from both cases is between 23.1% and 38.2% of single damages that could potentially be received.

“This is an exceptional rate of recovery, particularly for antitrust class actions, falling comfortably ‘within the range of reasonableness’ warranting preliminary approval,” the settlement notice says. “Were this case to proceed to trial, the settlement class could receive substantially less, or even nothing, despite more than a decade of litigation.”

Settlement ‘excellent result’ for class; 100M to receive email notices

The settlement class, which could be between 175 million and 215 million consumers, includes those who “paid an unreimbursed ATM access fee directly to any bank defendant or alleged bank co-conspirator for a foreign ATM transac!on using an ATM card issued by a financial institution in the U.S. to withdraw cash at an ATM located in the U.S. at any !me from Oct. 1, 2007 to the date of the preliminary approval order,” according to settlement documents.

Proposed settlement administrator A.B. Data will send individual email notices to settlement class members, according to the settlement.

Have you been charged high ATM fees for using a Visa or Mastercard? Let us know in the comments.

The plaintiff is represented by Steve W. Berman, Ben M. Harrington and Benjamin J. Siegel of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP; Adam B. Wolfson and Viola Trebicka of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP; and Steven A. Skalet of Mehri & Skalet PLLC.

The Visa and Mastercard lawsuit settlement is Mackmin, et al. v. Visa Inc., et al., Case No. 1:11-cv-01831-RJL-MAU, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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