A subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase, Chase Bank, has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit resulting from the bank’s decision in 2018 to charge higher fees on Chase credit cards that had classified the crypto purchases as “cash advances.” Earlier this year, lead plaintiffs Brady Tucker, Ryan Hilton, and Stanton Smith notified the U.S. Southern District Court in New York that they had agreed to a settlement with the defendant, Chase Bank. An order signed by Judge Katherine Polk Failla resulted in court proceedings being discontinued and allowed settlement to proceed.
Members of the lawsuit will receive 95% of the fee they allege were overcharged.
According to the Reuters report, in a motion filed to the Manhattan federal court on May 26, plaintiffs said the settlement would result in class members of the lawsuit receiving about 95% of the fees they allege the bank unlawfully charged them. However, Chase Bank, in turn, will not admit to any wrongdoing to the 62,000 class members as part of the settlement deal, according to the motion.
The plaintiffs brought the class-action lawsuit in April 2018.
The motion stated that the bank has agreed to enter into this agreement to avoid the further expense, inconvenience, and distraction of burdensome and protracted litigation, and to be completely free of any new claims that were asserted or could have been asserted in the lawsuit. The class-action lawsuit was first brought back in April 2018, when the plaintiff Tucker alleged that Chase had charged him more than $160 in fees and interest for regularly purchasing cryptocurrencies from Coinbase using his credit card. The amount of the refund that the bank will give out would be around $2.4 million.
