Podcast: NACS General Counsel Talks Credit Card Settlement

Doug Kantor sat down with the Working Lunch podcast.

April 03, 2024

NACS General Counsel Doug Kantor recently spoke with the hosts of Working Lunch, a politics-centric podcast hosted by Restaurant Business.

Visa and Mastercard recently proposed a nearly $30 billion settlement to limit credit and debit card fees for merchants by reducing their U.S. credit card interchange rates or swipe fees for at least a five-year period.

Kantor joined the hosts to discuss the preliminary settlement of the class action lawsuit brought by a group of retailers almost 20 years ago that charged the credit card companies and their electronic payments systems with being an anti-competitive monopoly. The group discussed the merits of the settlement, whether it will be approved by the courts, and what it means for pending legislation in Congress to reign in out-of-control interchange fees.

“There is nothing to celebrate in this,” Kantor said to podcast co-hosts Kefauver and Coley.

NACS continues to aggressively push back on Visa and Mastercard’s claims that the $30 billion settlement announced on March 27 to limit swipe fees will help retailers—and that it may in fact prevent real change from happening in the marketplace.

The podcast also delves into California’s minimum wage for fast-food workers, which is rising to $20 an hour, the highest statewide wage in the country.

Hear more from Doug Kantor on the podcast: Episode 326: Like Their Fees, The New Settlement Agreement With Visa & Mastercard Is Junk.

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