NEW YORK Lawyers for some of the plaintiffs in the MasterCard/Visa case asked a federal court here yesterday for final approval of the landmark $7.2 billion deal and of $720 million in legal fees to be shared among some 60 law firms in the huge antitrust case.
The settlement would provide about $7.25 billion in cash payments to an estimated eight million merchants and reduce the credit card interchange fees they pay by about $1.2 billion for a period.
“With the largest-ever cash relief in an antitrust class action settlement plus unprecedented rules changes that would enable merchants to recover their costs of credit card acceptance” the settlement “is far more than fair, adequate, and reasonable,’” said the plaintiffs’ lawyers in their filing.
In a separate filing, the lawyers said their request for attorneys’ fees is reasonable given the complexity of the issues and the length of time of the eight-year-long case. “The settlement will affect as great a segment of the United States economy as any previous antitrust class action,” lawyers for the plaintiffs said in the filing. “Such an extraordinary settlement could result only from a similarly extraordinary effort by class counsel and their co-counsel.”
The deal, for which the court has issued preliminary approval, still faces major hurdles, including opposition from the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents retail giants including Walmart Stores, Target and Home Depot. The group said earlier this week it will not endorse the proposed settlement and will continue to fight it because they don’t believe the settlement is large enough and that it gives card companies too much leeway to raise fees in the future.
The lawsuit alleged the card companies and some of the country’s largest banks conspired to fix prices of fees paid by merchants when customers pay with plastic.
A hearing on final approval has been scheduled for September.
