A group of 1,200 US retailers has called on a New York Federal judge to reject a proposed $7.2bn settlement between merchants and Visa Inc and MasterCard over swipe fee rates, after labelling it as "unacceptable".
In July 2012, Visa, MasterCard and nine major US issuers, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo announced the settlement to end a dispute that started in 2005, when a class of 7m US merchants accused them to violated antitrust laws by conspiring to impose high swipe fees.
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Trade associations including the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and the National Restaurant Association stressed the reason behind the refusal lays in the lack of a significant reform to swipe-fee rates.
Opponents’ lawyer Jeff Shinder told Reuters: "Fundamentally, these merchants and their representatives object to the settlement because it will neither introduce transparency nor give merchants the ability to inject competition in a market that has not functioned competitively for decades," objecting plaintiffs wrote in a court filing.
"And the release, given its scope, will make the competitive problems in the marketplace worse for merchants, not better," he added.
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