Jennifer Bayot reports in Tuesday's New York Times on the tentative ruling by a California judge regarding currency conversion fees.

Visa said in a statement that it was disappointed with the preliminary ruling in the case, Adam A. Schwartz v. Visa International, Visa International Service Association, Visa U.S.A. and MasterCard International. "The court decision flies in the face of common sense," said Stephen C. Theoharis, senior vice president of Visa U.S.A. "Visa pioneered today's currency conversion system that protects consumers from exorbitant rates when traveling abroad. The decision is fundamentally flawed, has no basis in fact or law, and we will appeal."

Visa EU reports that online sales in the fourth quarter of 2002 grew at a rate of 136% over the prior year.

Paul Beckett and Ron Lieber report in this morning's Wall St. Journal that Visa and MasterCard could face a bill of at least $500 million for poorly disclosing fees to cardholders using their cards overseas.

Judge Sabraw of California Superior Court in Oakland, in his tentative opinion, didn't ban the charging of currency-conversion fees, which generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue each year for Visa, MasterCard and the card-issuing banks, people familiar with the matter said. But the judge did say that because of what he believed was inadequate disclosure to cardholders, Visa and MasterCard would have to refund many cardholders who have paid the 1% surcharge since 1996, these people said. The judge also ruled that Visa and MasterCard would have to mandate that banks that issue their cards disclose the fee clearly in statements in the future.