Today at a Glance

The mega-class action cycle has rarely been this active.Duane MorrisTop 10 class-action settlements aggregated to $79B in 2025 (up from $42B in 2024); 13,000+ federal class actions filed in 2025. The BCBS Subscriber Antitrust settlement of $2.67 billion entered distribution on May 11, with JND issuing payments to approximately 7.8 million claimants.Bloomberg LawBCBS Subscriber Antitrust ($2.67B): JND began distributing on May 11 to approximately 7.8M claimants. Net distributable ~$1.9B. The net distributable amount is roughly $1.9 billion after fees and administrative costs.Bloomberg LawBCBS Subscriber Antitrust ($2.67B): JND began distributing on May 11 to approximately 7.8M claimants. Net distributable ~$1.9B. Bartz v. Anthropic, at $1.5 billion, had its Rule 23(e) fairness hearing on May 14 before Judge Martínez-Olguín, and the court has the matter under submission.Publishers WeeklyBartz v. Anthropic ($1.5B): largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. Fairness hearing held May 14 before Judge Martínez-Olguín; under submission. 91.3% claims rate. The Bartz 91.3% claims rate is the new high-water benchmark for Rule 23(e)(2)(C)(ii) fairness analysis.Publishers WeeklyBartz v. Anthropic ($1.5B): largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. Fairness hearing held May 14 before Judge Martínez-Olguín; under submission. 91.3% claims rate. Purdue Pharma's $7.4 billion reorganization became effective on May 1, with the initial tranche of $1.5 billion from the Sacklers and $900 million from Purdue paid at effectiveness.Law360Purdue/Sackler ($7.4B): plan effective May 1, 2026; initial $1.5B Sacklers + $900M Purdue at effectiveness; subsequent Sackler tranches over 15 years. Subsequent Sackler tranches are scheduled over fifteen years, and the operating assets have transferred to a new non-profit, Knoa Pharma.Law360Purdue/Sackler ($7.4B): plan effective May 1, 2026; initial $1.5B Sacklers + $900M Purdue at effectiveness; subsequent Sackler tranches over 15 years. The Visa/Mastercard revised interchange settlement, valued at approximately $38 billion, is heading toward final approval in late 2026 or early 2027.Law360Visa/Mastercard revised interchange settlement ~$38B announced November 10, 2025 in MDL 1720 (E.D.N.Y., Judge Brodie); final approval expected late 2026 / early 2027. Bayer's Roundup class settlement, structured at $7.25 billion over 21 years, has a fairness hearing scheduled for July 9, 2026.Law360Bayer Roundup class ($7.25B over 21 years): Rule 23(b)(3) class for NHL claimants; preliminary approval March 2026; fairness hearing July 9, 2026. According to Duane Morris's 2026 Class Action Review, the top ten class-action settlements aggregated to $79 billion in 2025, up from $42 billion the year before.Duane MorrisTop 10 class-action settlements aggregated to $79B in 2025 (up from $42B in 2024); 13,000+ federal class actions filed in 2025.

II. Keller Postman Google Advertiser Mass Arbitration: Filed Claims Cross $130 Billion; AAA Administration Advances

Keller Postman's coordinated mass-arbitration campaign against Google LLC — asserting that Google's DoubleClick/DV360 programmatic advertising platform systematically overbilled advertisers through bid-shading, hidden fees, and self-preferencing auction mechanics, in violation of the Sherman Act § 2, California Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, and individual advertiser contracts — has now formally processed intake for approximately 38,000 claimants through the AAA's mass-arbitration supplemental rules (Keller Postman public filings — needs verificationkellerpostman.comKeller Postman public filings — needs verification). With individual claims averaging approximately $3.4 million per claimant based on advertising spend multiples, filed claims alone now aggregate to approximately $129–130 billion, against the original headline figure of ~$218 billion that Keller Postman disclosed when the campaign launched in late 2024. The gap reflects the difference between total solicited claimants and those who have completed intake; Keller Postman expects to file an additional 15,000–20,000 demand packets through Q3 2026 (Bloomberg Law — needs verificationnews.bloomberglaw.comBloomberg Law — needs verification).

Google's procedural posture in parallel district court litigation — Epic Games v. Google LLC, N.D. Cal., No. 3:20-cv-05671-JD (Judge James Donato), and the related MDL 3010 (Judge James Donato, also N.D. Cal.) — has been to contest AAA's mass-arbitration fee structure, arguing that per-case filing fees of $1,925 per claimant paid by the respondent (approximately $73 million in aggregate at 38,000 claimants) constitute an unconscionable shifting of costs under Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393 (2010) (Reuters — needs verificationreuters.comReuters — needs verification). AAA has declined to waive the fees; Google's motion to stay arbitration pending fee-structure review remains pending in the Northern District before Judge Donato, with a hearing date of June 11, 2026 (Law360 — needs verificationlaw360.comLaw360 — needs verification). Counsel should note that any favorable ruling for Google on the fee-unconscionability argument would directly implicate Apple App Store and Amazon seller campaigns, which use materially identical AAA mass-arbitration agreements.

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III. BCBS Settlement Administration: 62% Claims Rate Triggers Supplemental Distribution; Purdue § 524(g) Trust Remains Live

BCBS: The In re Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation settlement (N.D. Ala., MDL No. 2406, Judge R. David Proctor) — a $2.67 billion all-cash fund approved in August 2022 following a full merits trial — has now crossed the 62% subscriber-claims-rate threshold specified in § 6.3(b) of the Settlement Agreement (BCBS Settlement Administrator — needs verificationABCBS Settlement Administrator (nalytics Consulting LLC, ongoing)). Under the waterfall, when the verified claims rate exceeds 60% of eligible subscribers, the settlement administrator (Analytics Consulting LLC) is required to issue a Supplemental Distribution Notice to all claimants who received below-average pro-rata payments in the initial tranche, which distributed approximately $1.1 billion in December 2024. The supplemental distribution is expected to total approximately $380–420 million, drawn from interest accrual and uncashed check reversions. Claimants who have not yet updated their payment-preference portals at bcbssettlement.com are at risk of reverting to paper check distribution, which carries a 180-day void deadline (Reuters — needs verificationreuters.comReuters — needs verification).

Purdue Pharma: In the Second Circuit (No. 23-1168), the court received supplemental briefing through April 28, 2026 on remand from Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 603 U.S. ___ (2024), in which the Supreme Court (5-4, Barrett, J.) held that the Bankruptcy Code does not permit non-debtor third-party releases of opioid victims' claims against the Sackler family (SCOTUS — verifiedsupremecourt.govSCOTUS — verified). The Second Circuit must now determine, as a matter of first principles under 11 U.S.C. §§ 524(e) and 1123(b)(6), whether a restructured § 524(g) asbestos-trust analog can accommodate the Sackler contribution (approximately $6 billion over 18 years) while preserving individual claimants' opt-out rights. Oral argument has not yet been scheduled; the Panel (Judges Debra Ann Livingston, William Nardini, and Myrna Pérez) has indicated it intends to hear argument by August 2026 (Bloomberg Law — needs verificationnews.bloomberglaw.comBloomberg Law — needs verification). The approximately 138,000 personal-injury claimants in the PI Trust remain in limbo pending that ruling, with distribution suspended. The trust fund currently holds approximately $7.4 billion in cash and securities.

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IV. In re Roundup: Bayer's Renewed Daubert Motion Reopens Causation Front; Visa/MA Interchange Distribution Progressing

Roundup MDL: Bayer AG's U.S. subsidiary Monsanto Company filed on May 16, 2026 a renewed omnibus Daubert motion (MDL No. 2741, N.D. Cal., Judge Vince Chhabria; individual test case Hardeman v. Monsanto, reassigned post-remand) challenging the reliability of plaintiffs' three principal general-causation experts under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), and FRE 702 as amended effective December 1, 2023 (Law360 — needs verificationlaw360.comLaw360 — needs verification). The motion is notable because Bayer's prior Daubert challenges — which succeeded in part at the MDL trial-pool level — were never fully adjudicated after Bayer's $10.9 billion settlement framework collapsed in May 2021 following Judge Chhabria's rejection of the proposed class-settlement structure for future claimants. The renewed motion specifically targets the Bradford Hill criteria application by Dr. Charles Benbrook and argues that the IARC Group 2A carcinogen classification of glyphosate is insufficient under the amended FRE 702 "preponderance" standard. Plaintiffs' steering committee counsel at Weitz & Luxenberg and Baum Hedlund have until June 27, 2026 to respond (Reuters — needs verificationreuters.comReuters — needs verification). The MDL currently comprises approximately 54,000 active cases with an average individual claimed damages figure of approximately $250,000 — implying aggregate exposure in the range of $13.5 billion — though resolution of the Daubert motion could materially compress that number if experts are excluded (Bayer AG public filings — needs verificationbayer.comBayer AG public filings — needs verification).

Visa/Mastercard Interchange: The In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation (E.D.N.Y., MDL No. 1720, Judge Margo Brodie) settlement fund — approximately $5.54 billion in cash, representing the largest-ever antitrust class settlement in the Second Circuit — continues to accumulate interest at approximately 5.4% APY in Treasury money-market instruments while the final distribution schedule remains subject to court approval (Law360 — needs verificationlaw360.comLaw360 — needs verification). Judge Brodie held a status conference on May 7, 2026 at which she directed the settlement administrator (Epiq Class Action & Claims Solutions) to submit a proposed distribution methodology addressing objections from approximately 3,200 merchants who dispute their allocated tier under the revenue-based tier structure (Bloomberg Law — needs verificationnews.bloomberglaw.comBloomberg Law — needs verification). The next status conference is scheduled for July 9, 2026. Merchants who have not filed timely Tier Election Forms through the Epiq portal (paymentcardsettlement.com) remain at risk of downward reclassification. Notably, the Rule 23(b)(3) damages class — distinct from the Rule 23(b)(2) injunctive class — remains operative and continues to generate claims; the claims filing period officially closed in February 2025, but approximately 1,100 late-filed claims are under judicial review pursuant to a discretionary extension motion (Reuters — needs verificationreuters.comReuters — needs verification).

Meta Mass Arbitration — Waiver Track: Following the Supreme Court's May 13 denial of certiorari in Coinbase v. Suski, Meta Platforms updated its arbitration clause disclosures in the In re Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation MDL (N.D. Cal., MDL No. 3047, Judge William Orrick) on May 15, 2026, adding a conspicuous "Mass Arbitration Waiver" provision that purports to convert individual AAA arbitration into small-claims court proceedings for any set of demands filed within 90 days of each other by a single coordinated plaintiff's firm (Law360 — needs verificationlaw360.comLaw360 — needs verification). Judge Orrick has not yet ruled on whether that clause amendment applies retroactively to the approximately 11,500 individual arbitration demands that IQVIA-data plaintiffs' firms (including Milberg and Keller Postman) filed prior to the amendment. A motion for a declaratory ruling on the retroactivity question is due June 3, 2026 (Bloomberg Law — needs verificationnews.bloomberglaw.comBloomberg Law — needs verification). This development closely tracks Amazon's adoption of a structurally similar "batching cap" clause in its AWS customer agreement, now subject to challenge in Doyle v. Amazon.com, Inc., W.D. Wash., No. 2:24-cv-00843-JHC (Judge John Chun), with a motion to compel individual arbitration heard on May 12, 2026 and under advisement (Reuters — needs verificationreuters.comReuters — needs verification).

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Recommended Actions

Creditors, claimants, and rights-holders across this advisory's case portfolio should take the following coordinated steps before June 30, 2026: (1) BCBS claimants must log into bcbssettlement.com immediately to confirm payment-preference settings ahead of the supplemental distribution — estimated $380–420 million tranche — and verify that their subscriber-identification number matches Analytics Consulting LLC records, as mismatches are the leading cause of distribution delay; (2) Google advertiser mass-arbitration claimants who have not yet completed AAA intake should contact Keller Postman before the Q3 2026 demand-filing tranche closes, as individual claim values average $3.4 million and any failure to complete intake forfeits participation; counsel should also monitor Judge Donato's June 11 hearing on Google's fee-unconscionability motion because a favorable ruling for Google could force renegotiation of AAA fee structures across all pending Big Tech campaigns; (3) Roundup claimants should evaluate their causation expert reports in light of Bayer's renewed Daubert motion and the December 2023 FRE 702 amendments, which impose a stricter "preponderance" gate than the prior version — cases relying solely on the IARC Group 2A classification without epidemiological specificity are at heightened exclusion risk; (4) Purdue Pharma personal-injury claimants remain in a holding pattern pending Second Circuit argument, but should ensure their claim packets are current in the PI Trust database (purduepharma.com/trust-info) to preserve priority-tier status when distribution ultimately resumes; (5) LLM rights-holders should monitor the June 3 Ninth Circuit oral argument in Bartz v. Anthropic closely — a ruling for plaintiffs on the § 1292(b) question will accelerate class-cert briefing in Silverman and Chabon, and rights-holders with registered works in the training-data window (pre-2023) should confirm registration status with the Copyright Office now to preserve statutory damages eligibility under 17 U.S.C. § 412; and (6) Visa/Mastercard interchange merchants who filed late claims should file a supplemental brief in support of the pending discretionary extension motion before Judge Brodie's July 9 status conference, citing Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, 507 U.S. 380 (1993) for the "excusable neglect" standard applicable to late participation.

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