American Express Handing $17,500,000 To Customers, Attorneys and Administrators In Class Action Settlement – Here’s Who Will Receive the Payout

American Express (AMEX) is set to pay millions of dollars to settle a federal antitrust lawsuit.

The class action suit filed in New York accuses the global financial services giant of unlawfully imposing anti-steering rules on merchants who accept AMEX cards as payment.

According to the complaint, AMEX put rules in the agreements with merchants that prohibited them from encouraging consumers to pay with non-AMEX cards that had lower processing fees.

The anti-steering provision allegedly prompted businesses to raise prices for all consumers, including those who did not use Amex cards, to cover the AMEX fee.

The lawsuit covers consumers who paid for goods between 2015 to 2022 at 38 different businesses in nine states including Alabama, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon and Utah.

However, the lawsuit prevailed for only one group of consumers, Illinois residents who used non-rewards Visa, Mastercard or Discover credit cards to make purchases in the state at the specified businesses, including Walmart, CVS and Best Buy, between January 29, 2016, to June 1, 2022.

The amount the Illinois consumers will receive from the settlement depends on the number of claims filed.

The deadline to file a clam is May 19th.

AMEX has not admitted to any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle the lawsuit. A judge is set to give final approval of the settlement on June 17th.

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