On February 25, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York approved an approximately $9.7 million class action settlement resolving claims that a New York credit union misvalued bank charges, including overdraft charges, when members had sufficient funds in their checking accounts to pay for transactions presented for payment. Plaintiffs also alleged, among other things, that the credit union (i) improperly charged fees on various transactions for members who did not join the credit union’s protection programs; (ii) assessed fees where there was no contractual basis for assessing the fees; (iii) transferred money from members’ savings accounts to checking accounts to avoid negative balances and resulting fees, but still imposed the fees; and (iv) violated the terms of its contracts and various laws by charging insufficient funds fees more than once on the same transaction. The settlement requires the credit union to pay approximately $5.85 million into a settlement fund, plus nearly $2.53 million in attorneys’ fees, $168,030 in fees and $15,000 in service awards. to each of the three named complainants. The settlement amount also includes the value of policy changes to be made by the credit union.
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