The National Retail Federation (NRF) has filed an appeal over credit card transaction fees, seeking to quash a class-action settlement between merchants and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported today. The move comes after a federal judge in December approved a $5.7 billion agreement — billed as the largest settlement of an antitrust case — to end years of litigation against payment networks Visa and MasterCard, as well as several banks that issue their credit cards. Merchants and their trade groups sued the companies in 2005, alleging that they conspired to set so-called interchange fees at unfairly high levels. Despite the accord, several plaintiffs, including the NRF, said that they would appeal the settlement. When the ruling was announced, the NRF called the settlement "deeply flawed."
