The National Restaurant Association said that it will reject a proposed settlement of as much as $7.25 billion with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over the fees they charge stores when customers pay with credit cards, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The settlement will not change a broken system on how the swipe fees are set, the association said. The settlement announced July 13 still needs approval by a federal judge. It would put to rest about seven years of litigation over claims that San Francisco-based Visa and Purchase, New York-based MasterCard conspired to fix fees. The accord calls for a temporary reduction in rates for merchants and would allow them to impose surcharges on customer purchases. The restaurant association joins the National Retail Federation, which represents more than 9,000 retailers, in opposing the settlement. The retailer association said on Sept. 11 that the proposed agreement does nothing to prevent Visa and MasterCard from raising swipe fees in the future.
