The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear appeals by Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc and several U.S. banks seeking to throw out lawsuits claiming they conspired to inflate the prices of ATM access fees in violation of antitrust …
Handing a victory to Facebook, a federal judge has ruled that the company won’t have to face a class-action lawsuit for allegedly violating its privacy policy by “leaking” people’s personal information to advertisers. U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte said this week that class-action treatment isn’t appropriate because “individualized questions will predominate” in the dispute. Most of …
After struggling with addiction and mental illness, Jayne Fuentes served her time, found a job and got her life back on track. But even though she’d been sober and crime-free for years, one thing dogged her: fear of being jailed or forced to do physical labor because she can’t afford to pay the government. Jayne is among the scores of people who owe Benton County, Washington thousands of …
The biggest money-damages antitrust settlement in U.S. history died Thursday at the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals. Not because of last year’s scandal surrounding leaks to a onetime MasterCard lawyer since charged with fraud, but because the agreement between credit card giants MasterCard, Visa and the merchants suing them for inflating certain fees was fundamentally unfair to some of the retailers. …
In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a settlement agreement between retailers and credit card issuers. Millions of retailers had reached a $7.25 billion antitrust settlement [NYT report] with Visa USA and MasterCard International [corporate websites] in 2013. However, after determining that some of …
Attorneys for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power filed court papers Thursday alleging the contractor that handled the troubled rollout of the utility’s billing system three years ago intentionally over-billed the city and spent the money, in part, on prostitutes and two lavish bachelor parties in Las Vegas. An attorney for Pricewaterhouse Coopers, however, flatly denied the …
Tyson Foods has asked for a new trial in a case in which workers at its Storm Lake pork plant were awarded $5.8 million. In a brief filed last week in U.S. District Court in Sioux City, Tyson lawyers said a new trial is needed to address both liability and damages issues. The food company said a new trial would help determine which of the workers included in the class action …
Newly filed court documents are providing shocking developments in a wrongful death case against a Felts Field aviation company. Michael Clements, 61, from Alberta was on his way to California and stopped at Felts Field to refuel. His plane crashed shortly after takeoff near Spokane’s Hamilton Street overpass.
Merchants score victory over Visa and MasterCard as court tosses $7.25bn interchange settlement In a win for merchants, a US federal appeals court has killed off a $7.25 billion class action settlement over interchange fees between millions of retailers and Visa and MasterCard. The huge settlement over claims that the card schemes had improperly fixed credit and debit card swipe fees was agreed …
The state’s lawsuit against the federal government, regarding the dumping of plutonium at the Savannah River Site, was heard in federal court Thursday. In that suit, South Carolina asked for $100 million in penalties from the federal government and the removal of the nuclear …