Visa/MasterCard Swipe-Fee Settlement Struck Down

On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York struck down the 2012 settlement of a class-action lawsuit over Visa and MasterCard’s credit card swipe fees. Retailers rejected the $7.25 billion settlement because it failed to reform the price-fixing system under which Visa and MasterCard set fees for credit cards issued by thousands of banks, according to a statement from the National Retail Federation. Visa and MasterCard proposed that the fees be passed along to the consumers as a surcharge rather than be lowered. At the time, credit card fees averaged about two percent of each transaction and amounted to $30 billion.