News from the Wire

Constantine Cannon scores second win against card networks

Thursday, October 30, 2008 — 14:45:03 (EDT)

New York, Oct. 29, 2008 -- Constantine Cannon LLP helped Discover Financial Services Inc. secure a $2.75 billion settlement from Visa and MasterCard earlier this week in the third largest reported antitrust settlement in U.S. history.

The landmark settlement comes on the heels of Constantine Cannon's role in 2003 as lead counsel in the historic In Re Visa Check settlement, which remains the largest antitrust settlement in history, and established Constantine Cannon as a leading law firm specializing in payments.

Shortly after the In Re Visa Check settlement, Constantine Cannon was retained by Discover Financial Services to join forces with Kirkland & Ellis to bring a damages action against Visa and MasterCard concerning their rules that prevented banks from issuing Discover Network cards. After four years of hard fought litigation, Visa and MasterCard agreed to settle the case the night before the trial was set to begin.

"It was our privilege to represent Discover and help it achieve such a just result in its longstanding dispute with Visa and MasterCard," said Jeff Shinder, Managing Partner of Constantine Cannon's New York office.

"This strong result reflects both the skill and collaborative spirit that our firm and our stellar co-counsel, Kirkland & Ellis, brought to bear on this case," said Matthew Cantor, a Constantine Cannon partner, who co-ran the case at Constantine Cannon with Mr. Shinder.

Shinder and Cantor also were among the lead lawyers in the In Re Visa Check case. In that case, Wal-Mart, Sears Roebuck, Safeway Supermarkets, Circuit City and The Limited led a class of 5 million merchants in a challenge to Visa's and MasterCard's Honor All Cards rules, which forced merchants that needed to accept Visa/MC credit card transactions to also accept their debit card transactions.

As they did in the Discover case, Visa and MasterCard settled the In Re Visa Check case on the eve of trial for over $3 billion and injunctive relief, including the elimination of the Honor All Cards rules, that the courts conservatively estimated as being valued at $25-$87 billion for the class.

Constantine Cannon LLP is a law firm specializing in antitrust counseling and complex commercial litigation with offices in New York and Washington with over 40 attorneys. In addition to expertise to clients in financial services and electronics payments, Constantine Cannon also represents clients involved in telecommunications/media, health care, transportation, and technology businesses.

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Source: Company press release.