With a week to go before the deadline for merchants to opt out of the $7.25 billion interchange settlement, a group of major retailers said on Tuesday (May 21) that they're not playing. Walmart, Costco, Starbucks, Gap, Lowe's, 7-Eleven and Nike filed paperwork with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that's handling the case, all saying they both objected to the settlement and were opting out.
The group also said its members were considering "additional legal action to recover damages from Visa and MasterCard under U.S. antitrust laws." A key point in the settlement is that Visa and MasterCard won't be subject to future interchange-related litigation. K. Craig Wildfang, one of the attorneys who negotiated the settlement, said he wasn't surprised by the announcement from Walmart and the other chains. "These merchants have been publicly critical of the settlement, and we always thought that many of them were likely to opt out," Wildfang said. "We remain confident that the vast majority of merchants in the class will not opt out."