Dear Merchant, This law firm, Constantine & Partners, is lead counsel for United States merchants in the case called Visa Check/MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation, CV 96-5238. The merchants and Visa and MasterCard agreed to settle the case in June 2003. Virtually all of the injunctive relief agreed to in the settlements is already being provided. For example, merchants are now free to accept Visa and/or MasterCard credit card transactions without accepting Visa and/or MasterCard signature debit card transactions or vice versa. Over 200 million Visa and MasterCard signature debit cards are being reissued with clear conspicuous and uniform Debit identification located on the right side of the face of these cards. The final approval of these settlements and of a plan to allocate and return the more than $3 billion in monetary relief which Visa and MasterCard agreed to pay merchants was granted on December 19, 2003 by the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York. However, there were three appeals of the District Courts decision approving the settlements made to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. On January 4, 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the District Courts decision granting final approval of the settlements. As discussed in the Plan of Allocation (which was approved by the District Court and not challenged in any of the appeals), until all appeals are resolved, including a potential appeal to the United States Supreme Court, monetary distributions to class members cannot be made. Any appeals to the Supreme Court are likely to be resolved by June 2005. When and if this occurs, the process of distributing the settlement funds will promptly commence. At such time, another merchant advisory will be issued. Copies of this Advisory and the entire Plan of Allocation can be obtained at the following websites: www.InReVisacheck-MastermoneyAntitrustLitigation.com (case website)
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