Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount
Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation consolidates claims that major card networks and issuing banks fixed the interchange fees merchants pay to accept card payments, and imposed network rules restricting merchants' ability to steer customers toward lower-cost payment methods. Centralized in the Eastern District of New York in 2005, the docket has run for more than two decades and still carries 66 pending actions — an unusually durable population for an MDL this old, reflecting a long settlement and opt-out history rather than an unresolved liability question.
What drives resolution timing in a docket at this stage is structurally different from a newer antitrust matter. The central conspiracy and market-definition questions were tested and largely resolved years ago; what remains is a mix of merchants who opted out of earlier settlement structures, later-filed actions raising overlapping theories, and claims tied to conduct that postdates earlier settlement classes. Resolution paths for these actions tend to run through coordinated case management within the existing MDL framework rather than fresh general-causation or class-certification fights, which meaningfully narrows the range of open procedural risk compared with an early-stage docket.
This is a useful structural contrast for anyone assessing MDL duration: a docket can remain technically active for decades once it develops an ongoing settlement and opt-out ecosystem, even after its core liability theory is resolved. Criterica Intelligence's platform surfaces this kind of structural distinction — separating genuinely unresolved liability risk from administrative-phase activity — across every active MDL, which is a more useful signal than docket age alone when assessing where a matter sits on its resolution path.
Plaintiffs allege that major card networks and issuing banks fixed interchange fees merchants pay on card transactions and imposed network rules restricting merchants from steering customers toward cheaper payment methods, raising the effective cost of accepting card payments.
The docket developed a long-running settlement and opt-out ecosystem. Some merchants opted out of earlier settlement structures, and later actions raise claims tied to conduct after earlier settlement classes closed, keeping the docket populated well past its original liability fight.
Less than a newer matter. The central market-definition and conspiracy questions were largely resolved years ago; remaining risk is concentrated in individual claim administration and narrower disputes rather than a fresh liability determination.
It shows how an MDL can remain procedurally active for decades once a durable settlement and opt-out framework develops — a reminder that docket longevity alone doesn't indicate unresolved liability risk, a distinction Criterica Intelligence tracks across every active MDL.
Statistics shown reflect historical or illustrative model outputs derived from real case data. They are not predictions or guarantees of any individual outcome. Litigation results depend on facts, jurisdiction, judge, and counsel, and vary case by case. Model accuracy is subject to selection effects and changing legal dynamics.