Florida MDL Judge approves four more excessive overdraft settlements

FeeFlorida federal judge King, who had been assigned a number of excessive overdraft cases by the MDL panel, signed off on four other settlements of class actions accusing the bank of manipulating debit card transactions to collect higher overdraft fees.

The suits involved claims against Harris Bank, Commerce Bank, Great Western Bank and M & I Marshley.

The suits were filed in 2009 alleging that the banks improperly changed the order of customers’ debit card transactions in order to maximize overdraft fees. The classes in the suits consisted of bank customers that opened accounts between 2003 and 2010.  Harris Bank agreed to set up a fund of $13 million, Commerce Bank agreed to set up a fund of $18 million, Great Western Bank agreed to set up a fund of $2.2 million, and M & I Marshley agreed to set up a fund of $4 million.

The settlements follow a number of other settlements in the MDL against more than 30 different banks, including JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, Bank of America NA and PNC Bank NA. The actions accused the banks of cashing in on excessive overdraft fees by ordering debit card transactions from largest to smallest so larger transactions would empty customer accounts and smaller transactions then would trigger multiple overdraft charges.

In March, Judge King approved a settlement that required TD Bank NA��to pay $62 million. The bank also was forced to pay an estimated $750,000 for all costs associated with class notice and settlement administration, according to the settlement agreement.  BofA, JPMorgan and PNC settled out of the MDL for $410 million, $110 million and $90 million, respectively. RBS Citizens NA agreed in April 2012 to pay $137.5 million to resolve its alleged role in the scheme.  US Bank recently agreed to pay $55 million to settle claim made against it.

Steve Larson

An experienced trial lawyer who handles both hourly and contingent fee cases, Steve has expertise in class actions, environmental clean-up litigation, antitrust litigation, securities litigation, corporate disputes, intellectual property disputes, unfair competition claims, and disputes involving family wealth. Steve regularly represents individuals and businesses in federal and state court and has obtained class-wide recovery in multiple class actions. A veteran practitioner, Steve’s clients value his creative approach to resolving complex litigation matters.

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