Jul 13, 2012 2:30 PM PDT    Text size: 

NEW YORK — Online adult companies will be among those that benefit after Visa, MasterCard and major banks agreed to a $7.25 billion settlement reached today.

The settlement involves 7 million merchants in the U.S. who accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards and debit cards.

Online adult companies are prime plaintiffs, given the volume of credit card purchases.

The nuts and bolts of the class-action suit revolves around the presumption that Visa and MasterCard, along with their member banks, conspired to fix and artificially inflate the interchange fees that merchants pay to accept Visa and  MasterCard branded debit and credit cards. 

Just last spring at The Phoenix Forum, Patrick Jermyn, an attorney with Harrison, N.Y.-based Class Action Refund LLC, was informing attendees of the expected settlement.

"Any company that accepted Visa and MasterCard credit and or debit cards beginning in 2004 will be eligible to participate in the settlement," Jermyn told XBIZ at the time.

That relevant time starts in 2004 and could go as far as 2011, said Jermyn, whose firm is one of many class action recovery firms working on the suit.

The settlement, believed to be the largest ever settlement of a private antitrust case under the Sherman Act, is with payment card networks Visa and MasterCard and with card-issuing banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Capital One and other major banks.

The case is In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Litigation, 05-MD-1720.