Company: FITBI
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0000035527-25-000137
Chunk: 139

Company: FIFTH THIRD BANCORP
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form: 10-Q
Item: Item 8
Chunk 139
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itrust Litigation, Case No. 5-MD-1720). The plaintiffs, merchants operating commercial businesses throughout the U.S. and trade associations, claimed that the interchange fees charged by card-issuing banks were unreasonable and sought injunctive relief and unspecified damages. In addition to being a named defendant, the Bancorp is currently also subject to a possible indemnification obligation of Visa as discussed in Note 13 and has also entered into judgment and loss sharing agreements with Visa, MasterCard and certain other named defendants. In October 2012, the parties to the litigation entered into a settlement agreement that was initially approved by the trial court but reversed by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals and remanded to the district court for further proceedings. More than 500 of the merchants who requested exclusion from the class filed separate federal lawsuits against Visa, MasterCard and certain other defendants alleging similar antitrust violations. These individual federal lawsuits were transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. While the Bancorp is only named as a defendant in one of the individual federal lawsuits, it may have obligations pursuant to indemnification arrangements and/or the judgment or loss sharing agreements noted above. On September 17, 2018, the defendants in the consolidated class action signed a second settlement agreement (the “Amended Settlement Agreement”) resolving the claims seeking monetary damages by the proposed plaintiffs’ class (the “Plaintiff Damages Class”) and superseding the original settlement agreement entered into in October 2012. The Amended Settlement Agreement included, among other terms, a release from participating class members for liability for claims that accrue no later than five years after the Amended Settlement Agreement becomes final. The Amended Settlement Agreement provided for a total payment by all defendants of approximately $6.24 billion, composed of approximately $5.34 billion held in escrow plus an additional $900 million in new funds. Pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement, $700 million of the additional $900 million has been returned to the defendants due to the level of opt-outs from the class. On December 13, 2019, the Court entered an order granting final approval for the settlement, and on March 15, 2023, the Second Circuit affirmed that order. The settlement does not resolve the claims of the separate proposed plaintiffs’ class seeking injunctive relief or the claims of merchants who have opted out of the proposed class settlement and are pursuing, or may in the future