Merchants Urge Judge to Reject Visa-Mastercard Fee Deal

Close to 1,000 US merchants are pressing a federal judge to throw out a proposed settlement resolving litigation over credit card swipe fees charged by Visa and Mastercard. The merchants argue the agreement, as structured, does not deliver meaningful relief to the businesses that absorb those costs.

Their central complaint is that the deal is, in their words, "riddled with loopholes" - provisions they contend would let the card networks preserve practices the lawsuit was meant to curb. From the merchants' perspective, the settlement would lock in the status quo rather than force genuine changes to how interchange is set and passed along.

Interchange fees, often called swipe fees, are deducted each time a customer pays with a credit card, and they represent a significant expense for retailers operating on thin margins. The dispute over who sets those fees and how much merchants can do to avoid them has run for years, with billions of dollars in annual costs at stake for the retail sector.

The judge now has to weigh whether to approve the settlement or send the parties back to the negotiating table. Approval would end a long-running case; rejection would extend uncertainty for both the networks and the merchants seeking a better outcome. Both sides now await the court's decision.