By Brent Kendall 

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday declined an invitation to rescue a $7.25 billion antitrust settlement between Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. and retailers that argued the card companies' rules led to artificially inflated fees.

The high court in a brief order said it won't review a federal appeals court decision from last June that invalidated the settlement. In that ruling, the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the settlement was problematic because some groups of merchants weren't adequately represented.

The appeals court found the settlement had problems because it sought to cover two groups of plaintiffs with different interests: One group of merchants that was in line to receive monetary damages based on the credit card fees they paid in the past, and another group of merchants who wanted changes to the card companies' rules in the future.

The appeals court found the deal shortchanged those merchants who were focused on the future card rules.

The Supreme Court's decision to stay out of the case leaves legal uncertainty for Visa and Mastercard, which already have been defending the case for a decade.

Merchants had challenged a series of card-industry rules as being anticompetitive, including one referred to as the "honor all cards" requirement. That rule meant merchants had to accept all Visa and Mastercard credit cards no matter the varying fees associated with them. Other rules prohibited merchants from charging different prices for different types of payment.

Some of the smaller retailers in the case had petitioned the Supreme Court to review it and revive the settlement. Visa and Mastercard supported that effort.

Scores of larger retailers objected to the settlement and urged the high court to stay out of the case, including Amazon.com Inc., Best Buy Co., Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp.

Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 27, 2017 11:35 ET (15:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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