Merchants in the $5.5 billion Visa-Mastercard settlement will soon be able to track the status of their claims through a quarterly reporting system, a new layer of visibility in a case that has moved slowly enough to frustrate some claimants. The reports will show how many claims are stuck over tax identification numbers, how many research requests Epiq still has pending and how much money has been sent out.
The change matters because the settlement covers about 12 million merchant-plaintiffs, including U.S. businesses that accepted Visa or Mastercard-branded cards from Jan. 1, 2004, through Jan. 25, 2019. Plaintiffs sent claim forms to roughly 18.6 million merchants before a February 2025 deadline, and the settlement administrator had already paid $414 million to about 598,000 merchants as of a May 26 filing after an initial distribution approved by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan late last year.
The reporting system grew out of a fight over transparency. Last month, Marutollo denied a February motion by Cascade Settlement Services to force detailed monthly reporting, after the firm said it represents about 9,000 claims against the networks. Instead of monthly updates, Marutollo directed class counsel and Cascade’s lawyer to negotiate periodic public reporting that would give better insight into how Epiq is processing claims, and the attorneys filed a draft list of categories with their letter.
That quarterly package will not answer every complaint merchants have about the pace of payment, but it should show whether the claims pipeline is moving. It will also list how many disputed TINs remain before the special master and how much money has been distributed to merchants, giving claimants a clearer view while the court still weighs a separate request to approve a second disbursement of at least $182 million for about 84,000 claimants.
The settlement, reached in 2018, partially resolved a long-running antitrust case in which merchants said the card networks charged excessive interchange fees on credit and debit purchases. A separate part of the litigation over injunctive relief remains pending in Brooklyn, where Cogan is also considering preliminary approval of that portion of the case. For merchants waiting on payments, the new reporting system is the first sign that the process is being forced into the open.
