MA MasterCard Incorporated

By Robin Sidel 

A lawyer who is at the center of a controversy surrounding a record-setting $6 billion antitrust settlement acknowledged that she received confidential information from a rival lawyer to advise her client, according to a court filing late Tuesday.

Keila Ravelo represented MasterCard Inc. in a lawsuit that covered millions of merchants, resulting in a record settlement in 2013. Allegations that she and another lawyer shared confidential information are threatening that pact.

Ms. Ravelo's statements came in the form of a sworn declaration filed in court on Tuesday by lawyers who are seeking to unravel the settlement. They represented Ms. Ravelo's first official statements about the matter, which has been the subject of a court tussle for months.

While advising MasterCard on the settlement, "I drew upon all the information in my possession that affected MasterCard's interests, including the information I was provided by Gary Friedman," she said in the document.

Mr. Friedman was a lawyer representing some of the merchants in the case, and a longtime friend of Ms. Ravelo's. Ms. Ravelo, who worked at law firm Willkie, Farr & Gallagher LLP when the case was settled, said she is willing to testify in a deposition in the case.

"Ms Ravelo's name has been bandied about and she has not had the opportunity to formally respond. She is now ready to sit down and discuss her role in the MasterCard litigation and all the circumstances surrounding her dealings with the case," said Steve Sadow, a lawyer who is representing Ms. Ravelo.

Lawyers on both sides of the case filed their arguments in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday about whether the case should be unraveled. Visa and MasterCard want the pact to stay in place, saying that the conduct of Ms. Ravelo and Mr. Friedman "did not taint the settlement," according to court documents.

Samuel Issacharoff, a lawyer representing Mr. Friedman, declined to comment.

The $6 billion Visa-MasterCard settlement was completed more than a year ago after a decade of litigation that began when large retailers began filing price-fixing lawsuits against Visa and MasterCard.

A number of big merchants, including Wal-Mart Inc. and 7-Eleven Inc., oppose the settlement and now contend that the exchange of confidential information between Ms. Ravelo and Mr. Friedman compromised the pact.

Write to Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 01, 2015 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)

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