As we mentioned in our previous post, the court overseeing the Visa-Mastercard settlement approved an extension of the filing deadline. pushing the original May 31 deadline out to August 30. And there's a good chance it will be pushed again.

Why is this important?

This extension means tens or even hundreds of thousands of class members will file their claims over the summer. These higher participation numbers will likely delay the payout by many months, if not years. The claims administrator is already experiencing serious issues processing the claims submitted so far. Issues may only worsen if the claims administrator must process literally millions of additional entities.

In their request for an extension, class counsel wrote:

“Reasons to request the extension include the following: (1) there are many thousands of unresolved conflicting claims between third-party filers, class members, and claim buyers - more time would ensure that these conflicts are properly resolved; (2) because of the length of the Class Period, as well as other reasons such as merchant processor changes over the period, requests from class members regarding data, including requests to re-query the database and to provide additional data to determine interchange fees paid has been greater than anticipated; and (3) Epiq has seen a sharp spike in claims following a mailed postcard campaign and believes this increase in claims is likely to continue with additional time.”

Translation: this is going to take a long time!

Because this settlement has a prorated distribution, a higher participation rate means a lower final payout multiplier. And given the litigation began 19 years ago, this deadline extension is just another delay on the long road to a recovery for investors.

It also may not be the last delay. With an enormous class of over 18 million businesses and other entities that accept Visa and Mastercard, the admistrator's work will entail amended claims, a protracted deficiency process, contested claims, and disputed rejections, all of which could add even more delays to the settlement award distribution date.

So what does this all mean?

It means it may be time to monetize your claims now rather than wait years for a lower payout. 

If you sell your claim to CCC, you can put that capital to work and more than make up for the cost of waiting. Add staff, upgrade technology, repair, invest, expand…

The possibilities are endless. The wait doesn’t have to be.