News & Press

Spectrum Settlement Recovery Plays Key Role in Deadline Extension in $3 Billion VISA/MasterCard Settlement
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 2005

Merchants have additional time to file claims in the $3 billion VISA/MasterCard class action settlement as a result of court documents filed by Spectrum Settlement Recovery, LLC, a San Francisco-based firm that helps eligible businesses recover their share of class action settlements.

On October 11, the Judge overseeing the case ordered an extension of time to 90 days for class members to challenge or accept claim estimates received from the Claims Administrator. Previously, the deadlines were 30 and 60 days, respectively.

Spectrum wrote the Court on October 4 calling attention to numerous difficulties that were apparent with the claims process and sought a broad extension of the filing deadlines for the entire class.

Lead counsel in the case immediately opposed the broad extension sought by Spectrum and recommended that it be denied. This was surprising since lead counsel had conceded that collecting relevant data was sufficiently burdensome to warrant a limited extension of the time to challenge an estimate.

Not satisfied with lead counsel's initial reaction, the Court ordered it to respond to the issues raised by Spectrum, whereupon lead counsel stated it had "no objection" to Spectrum's request to extend the deadline.

"Spectrum is seeking to address issues that are complicating the ability of class members to evaluate the claim estimates they receive," says Howard Yellen, CEO of Spectrum. "We would like to engage constructively with the lead counsel and the Claims Administrator in this process."

Spectrum is working on a variety of issues important to merchants in the class. For example, many merchants do business at more than one location and therefore have more than one Merchant ID. Spectrum has asked the Claims Administrator to provide a list of a class member's Merchant IDs to enable the merchant to confirm all its locations are accounted for in the claims process.

"The process of allocating and distributing payments to potentially millions of merchants is extremely complicated. As the recovery process moves ahead, we will continue working to ensure that all class members are treated fairly," says Spectrum CEO Yellen.

The VISA/MasterCard settlement is the nation's largest commercial class action settlement to date. Over 5 million businesses are eligible for a refund. The entire $3 billion fund will be distributed among only those who file a claim.

Businesses that accepted VISA or MasterCard credit and debit cards between October 1992 and June 2003 are eligible to receive a share of the settlement money. The settlement stems from a class action suit that alleged the charge card companies violated anti-trust laws and overcharged on transaction processing fees.

About Spectrum Settlement Recovery -- Spectrum is the nation's largest claim filing and fund recovery service for commercial and securities class-action settlements. Spectrum offers a complete solution for filing and managing settlement claims. www.spectrumsettlement.com.