Merchants have objected to a settlement in a long-running dispute over interchange fees, alleging the deal would hand issuers liability immunity for fees and rules. Merchants, at the same time, would receive “temporary and meager relief.” On the basis of these and other objections, the merchants “urge(s) the court to deny final approval of this settlement.”

The allegations surfaced Thursday via a merchant filing related to a 21-year-old federal case in which merchants are contesting the costs imposed on them through card-acceptance fees. The latest filing sets out a detailed set of objections from 978 merchants to a final approval of the settlement  Defendants in the case, which include the big card networks and major banks, filed a proposed settlement agreement in the case in November.

At the root of the merchants’ latest objections is that the settlement “doesn’t change anything,” a spokesman for the Merchant Payments Coalition said. The proposed agreement “would grant Visa, Mastercard, and giant card-issuing banks sweeping liability immunity for their anticompetitive system of card fees and rules wile providing merchants with temporary and meager relief that is riddled with loopholes that will make the relief largely ineffective,” the 48-page merchant filing alleges.

A spokesperson for the Electronic Payments Coalition, which advocates on behalf of the card industry, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Specifically, the merchants allege in their latest filing the settlement leaves in place “a core anticompetitive problem,” which they say involves “Visa and Mastercard’s continuing, central role in their network cartel structure sheltering banks from market competition by fixing fee rates and transaction rules on their behalf.”

The filing also objects that a 1.25% temporary rate cap for standard consumer credit cards, set by the proposed settlement, is “easily circumvented,” as standard cards “represent a small and shrinking fraction of the market.”

In addition for rate relief, the proposal included a surcharging provision that some observers argued would make the practice more prevalent. Some 65% of consumers said they have paid a surcharge on a card-based purchase, according to research last year by J.D. Power.