Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and several banks learned the hard way in 2012 how damaging a consumer class action can be. That was the year the finance companies inked an antitrust settlement totaling $7.25 billion with U.S. retailers and individuals over allegations the credit-card issuers fixed debit- and credit-card fees, creating an anticompetitive environment.

Although a class action settlement of such a massive size is rare, in general consumer class action settlements are commonplace. A new report from NERA Economic Consulting, a global consulting firm that deals with business and legal challenges, shows that consumer class action settlements are on the rise. The report also found that an emerging type of consumer case—the privacy violation class action—has been gathering steam.

The NERA study examined settlements reached in consumer class action cases between the beginning of 2010 and the end of 2013, excluding cases that involved employment and securities law. Out of the 479 settlements studied, there was an aggregate settlement value for 321. In the other 158 settlements, the value could not be determined in an exact way because the size was either not capped or depended on the number of individuals who came forward during a claim process. In some of the 158 settlements, it was hard to determine the aggregate value because the benefits that the class received were hard to place a value on.

Read more: www.corpcounsel.com/id=1202664649572/Consumer-Class-Action-Settlements-on-the-Rise#ixzz38lHXnytg

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