New York, NY: Subject to final approval by the Court, a settlement has been reached with defendant National Arbitration Forum, Inc. ("NAF"). This is the fifth settlement in this consumer banking. On July 26, 2010, the Court entered Final Judgment for settlements reached with four of the seven defendants – Bank of America, Capital One, Chase and HSBC – in Ross, et al. v. Bank of America, N.A., (USA), et al., No. 05-cv-7116, MDL No. 1409 (S.D.N.Y.).
This lawsuit involves claims that the settling defendants Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, HSBC and NAF and the non-settling defendants Citibank and Discover violated federal law by conspiring, with each other and certain non-defendants, to require that their cardholders (a) take all legal disputes to arbitration rather than court and (b) give up any right to participate in class actions against the above six credit card companies.
This case is on behalf of cardholders who are subject to arbitration clauses. Cardholders who are not subject to arbitration clauses, including any Discover cardholders who have opted out of arbitration, are not included in the case.
All settling defendants and all non-settling defendants deny that they conspired with each other or that they violated any law, and assert that they have done nothing wrong or improper.
IMPORTANT DEADLINES. The deadline for submitting an objection to the settlement with NAF is March 16, 2012. The date of the hearing for final approval of the NAF settlement is April 27, 2012.
