A panel of federal judges drawn from around the country will meet on May 27 in Louisville, Kentucky, to hear oral arguments on whether lawsuits brought by financial institutions, consumers and investors against Heartland should be rolled into class action cases.

According to its Web site, www.jpml.uscourts.gov, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, known informally as the MDL Panel, was created by an Act of Congress in 1968 to determine whether civil actions pending in different federal districts involve one or more common questions of fact such that the actions should be transferred to one federal district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings. The panel also selects a judge or judges to handle the case, should it decide to proceed as a class action.

Altogether, there are roughly 30 cases against Heartland in different federal courts, primarily in New Jersey and Texas. Matadors Community Credit Union headquartered in Chatsworth, CA; GECU, headquartered in El Paso, TX; and MidFlorida Federal Credit Union, headquartered in Lakeland, FL are parties to one of the cases filed in New Jersey. PSECU, headquartered in Harrisburg, PA, is a party to another filed in Houston.