Visa 2013 Annual Report Download - page 124

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VISA INC.
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS—(Continued)
September 30, 2013
Law and the Cartwright Act. On May 19, 2006, the court entered an order dismissing plaintiff’s
Cartwright Act claims with prejudice but allowing the plaintiff to proceed with his Unfair Competition
Law claims, which seek restitution, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs. On December 14,
2007, the plaintiff amended his complaint to add Visa Inc. as a defendant.
In the separate “Indirect Purchaser” Credit/Debit Card Tying Cases, also pending in California
state court (see below), Visa entered into a settlement agreement on September 14, 2009 which
potentially could have had the effect of releasing the claims asserted in the Attridge case, subject to
the ruling of the Attridge court. On August 23, 2010, final approval of the Credit/Debit Card Tying
Cases settlement was granted. The plaintiff in Attridge and others appealed the final approval order.
On February 15, 2011, the court ordered that the Attridge case be stayed until 30 days following the
final resolution of the appeals in the Credit/Debit Card Tying Cases. On January 9, 2012, the appeals
court reversed the approval of the Credit/Debit Card Tying Cases settlement, and the case was
remanded to the trial court for consideration of the fairness and adequacy of the settlement in light of
the inclusion of the Attridge claims in the release.
The parties in the Credit/Debit Card Tying Cases subsequently agreed upon a revised written
settlement agreement, which was finally approved by the court on April 11, 2013. Objectors have filed
notices of appeal in those cases and the Attridge case. On September 18, 2013, in light of the
proceedings in the Credit/Debit Card Tying Cases, the Attridge case was stayed until April 11, 2014.
Interchange Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)
Beginning in May 2005, approximately fifty-five complaints (all but thirteen of which were styled as
class actions) were filed in U.S. federal district courts by merchants against Visa U.S.A., Visa
International, and/or MasterCard, and in some cases, certain Visa member financial institutions. The
complaints challenged, among other things, Visa’s and MasterCard’s purported setting of interchange
reimbursement fees, their “no surcharge” rules, and alleged tying and bundling of transaction fees
under the federal antitrust laws, and, in some cases, certain state unfair competition laws. On
October 19, 2005, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued an order transferring the cases to
the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for coordination of pre-trial proceedings in
MDL 1720. A group of purported class plaintiffs filed a Second Consolidated Amended Class Action
Complaint on January 29, 2009 which, together with the thirteen complaints brought by individual
merchants, sought money damages alleged to range in the tens of billions of dollars (subject to
trebling), as well as attorneys’ fees and injunctive relief. The class plaintiffs also filed a Second
Supplemental Class Action Complaint against Visa Inc. and certain member financial institutions
challenging Visa’s reorganization and IPO under the antitrust laws and seeking unspecified money
damages and declaratory and injunctive relief, including an order that the IPO be unwound.
On July 1, 2007, as part of the retrospective responsibility plan, Visa U.S.A. and Visa International
entered into an interchange judgment sharing agreement with certain member financial institutions of
Visa U.S.A.
On February 7, 2011, Visa entered into an omnibus agreement that confirmed and memorialized
the signatories’ intentions with respect to the loss sharing agreement, the judgment sharing agreement
and other agreements relating to the interchange multidistrict litigation. Under the omnibus agreement,
the monetary portion of any settlement of the interchange multidistrict litigation covered by the omnibus
agreement would be divided into a MasterCard portion at 33.3333% and a Visa portion at 66.6667%. In
addition, the monetary portion of any judgment assigned to Visa-related claims in accordance with the
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