USA TODAY: The deal includes a little more than $6 billion in cash for damages, of which Visa will pay $4.4 billion and MasterCard will pay $790 million. As part of the settlement, credit card companies have agreed to reduce for eight months so-called swipe fees, that businesses pay credit card companies for card transactions they process. The temporary fee reprieve is valued at $1.2 billion.
Lawyers involved in the case call it the largest antitrust settlement in history. Most major U.S. banks are defendants. The merchants include grocery chains Kroger and Safeway, the Rite Aid drugstore chain and QVC, the TV and online shopping network.
In the antitrust case, which dates to 2005, the retailers alleged the card issuers and banks conspired to fix the fees the stores paid to accept credit and debit cards, which average about 2% of the price of a purchase… (more)
