A group of 19 large retailers including Wal-Mart Stores, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Starbucks are pulling out of a pending class-action settlement with Visa and MasterCard, setting the stage for further disputes over transaction-processing fees.

According to the merchants, the pending deal won’t stop transaction fees from rising and prevents them from taking legal action against credit-card networks for anticompetitive behaviour in the future.

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"If this settlement is approved, it would allow credit card companies and big banks to perpetuate an unfair and broken system that costs all consumers, including those who don’t even have a credit or debit card," said Mike Cook, senior VP of finance for Wal-Mart.

The group of merchants also includes major brands like the Gap, Lowe’s, Nike, 7-Eleven and Alon Brands. After objecting to the settlement the retailers said in a group statement, that they are considering "additional legal action to recover damages from Visa and MasterCard under US antitrust laws".

The merchants and trade groups claimed that the credit card networks and card-issuing banks conspired to set transaction fees that retailers pay each time a customer pays with a credit card at arbitrarily high levels, until a settlement was reached last July.

By opting out, the retailers surrender their right to monetary payments of up to $6.05bn set to go to merchants that accept Visa and MasterCard credit cards. As part of the settlement, the card networks also agreed to temporarily lower interchange rates, by an amount equal to $1.2bn.

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The move comes a week before a court deadline to object to the deal. A hearing on final approval of the settlement is scheduled for 12 September 2013.

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