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Bush signs law providing credit slip clarification

WASHINGTON Restaurant industry officials praised President Bush for signing a law Tuesday that aims to shield operators and other merchants from lawsuits stemming from the printing of expiration dates on credit card receipts.

The bipartisan-backed Credit and Debit Card Clarification Act amends the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, or FACTA, which was passed in 2003 to help prevent credit card fraud. Confusing language in a FACTA provision, however, triggered hundreds of lawsuits aimed at businesses. FACTA also levied fines ranging from $100 to $1,000 per transaction.

The provision said that after Dec. 4, 2006, receipts could contain no more than the last five digits of a credit or debit card ÒorÓ the expiration date. Many operators interpreted the instructions to mean they had their choice of either truncating the credit card number or omitting the expiration date, but were not required to do both. As a result, some left the date on.

According to the new law, businesses that included the expiration date on a receipt over the past year and a half will not be in violation of the law, providing they truncated the credit card number on those receipts.

The measure had wide bipartisan backing, with supporters including Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; and Spencer Bachus, R-Ala.; and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Dawn Sweeney, president and chief executive of the National Restaurant Association, said the NRA, foodservice operators "and others in the retail sector advocated strongly for a clarification of the confusing language of the original Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act. This is a major legislative victory for the association and the entire restaurant industry."

Scott Vinson, vice president of the National Council of Chain Restaurants, said: "The continued proliferation of these lawsuits is an unnecessary drain on resources during a time of financial uncertainty in the nation's economy. Chain restaurant operators nationwide are pleased that Congress has passed and President Bush has signed this commonsense legislation."

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