Thorntons Inc. today joined the growing list of convenience store retailers to blast the proposed settlement of longstanding antitrust litigation between retailers and the credit card industry.

In a statement to the media, the Louisville, Ky. chain said, “The proposed settlement, announced on July 13th, does not make meaningful changes to the broken credit card swipe fee market and it broadly restricts merchants’ rights to challenge the card industry’s anticompetitive practices in the future.

“The proposal offers no long-term relief for retailers or consumers from increasing swipe fees or from unfair credit card network rules and it will not keep the card networks from continuing to raise swipe fees, which already cost retailers and consumers around $50 billion per year. Merchants have been fighting for years to bring real competition and transparency to the credit card market. The proposed settlement does not achieve those objectives.

Rather than accept this flawed settlement, Thorntons. Convenience Store Decisions’ 2011 Chain of the Year, urged everyone in the merchant community, including those representing the class of merchants around the nation, “to work toward a real solution to the problem caused by the card companies’ anticompetitive conduct.”

Convenience Store Decisions wants to hear from other retailers discouraged by the proposed settlement. Please email your comments to CSD Editor John Lofstock at [email protected]