The NationalRetail Federation announced Tuesday that it will formallyoppose the final settlement of litigation between retailers, Visaand MasterCard and a number of the largest card issuers.

The retail group, which had not been part of the originallitigation, had been criticizing the settlement for months.

“The proposed settlement does nothing to bring swipe fees undercontrol and would give Visa and MasterCard a legal blessing tocontinue their abuse of merchants and consumers indefinitely,” NRFSenior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said.

“No settlement at all would be better than this one-sided'agreement' written by the card companies for the card companiesthat would tie retailers' hands for decades to come.” Duncan saidin the federation's announcement.

The trade group argued that the agreement does not change theway card interchange is set nor introduce greater transparency intothe process. It also argued that the proposed remedy ofsurcharging consumers for their card use in order to cover thecosts of processing cards is so impractical as to be nearlyimpossible in the currently very competitive retailenvironment.

NRF recognized that retailers who participate in the agreementwill share in $7.25 billion put up by the card brands and cardissuers, but noted that this “amounts to less than three months'worth of swipe fee charges, and the small retailers hit hardest bythe fees would give up their rights for as little as a few hundreddollars.”

The suit was brought in 2005 by 19 trade associations andindividual retail companies.