Credit card holders may not be entitled to refunds for damaged or undelivered goods bought abroad or from overseas suppliers following the outcome of a test case in the House of Lords.

Card providers are challenging the appeal won by the Office of Fair Trading last year, making lenders jointly liable with the retailer for purchases under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, whether bought overseas or in the UK.

Sandra Quinn, director of communications at the Association for Payment Clearing Services, said: “Section 75 was written for hire purchase agreements and was not designed to cover credit cards or the extensive way we now use them. This current case tests the validity of an interpretation by the Court of Appeal, which gives card issuers an open-ended liability to provide insurance for customers, not only for the amount of a transaction undertaken abroad but also for any consequential loss.

“Pending a decision card companies will continue to meet their legal obligations to honour these section 75 claims but the industry looks forward to having clarification of the law which has been unclear for far too long.”

The lenders argue that they are being placed in the position of “the insurers of some 29m foreign suppliers”, and that they are also unfairly liable for credit card purchases made over the internet from fraudulent overseas suppliers who fail to deliver.

A spokesman for Lloyds TSB, which is making the appeal along with Tesco Personal Finance (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group), and American Express, said: “A UK card issuer has no real connection with the millions of foreign suppliers where its credit cards can be used, and may not be able to recover section 75 payments from that supplier.

“The act was introduced when the internet was just a glimmer in someone’s eye, but now a lot of people shop online through foreign suppliers, and we are living in an increasingly litigious society.”

Martyn Saville of Which? said: “Consumers should be covered by section 75 regardless of where they buy the item, including online and overseas.

“The internet has opened up huge new markets to consumers and the level of cover they receive when purchasing items with their UK credit card should not be restricted geographically.

“In addition, with most credit card companies, consumers already pay a charge each time they use a credit card abroad. It would be highly disappointing if the courts found against consumers in this case.”

In March 2006, Lord Justice Waller, Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Moore-Bick overturned an earlier decision that section 75 did not apply to overseas transactions.

In November 2004 a judge upheld the card companies’ argument that parliament had intended section 75 to apply only to domestic transactions which were subject to the jurisdiction of the British courts.

(10-03) 08:56 PDT PHILADELPHIA (AP) —

Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania who previously won a $78.5 million class-action award for working off the clock will share an additional $62.3 million in damages, a judge ruled Wednesday.

About 125,000 people will receive $500 each in damages under a state law invoked when a company, without cause, withholds pay for more than 30 days.

A Philadelphia jury last year awarded the workers the exact amount they had sought, rejecting Wal-Mart’s claim that some people chose to work through breaks or that a few minutes of extra work here and there was insignificant.

“Just as highly paid executives’ promised equity interests or put options or percentage of sale proceeds are protected fringe benefits and wage supplements, so too the monetary equivalents of ‘paid break’ time cashiers and other employees were prohibited from taking are protected fringe benefits and wage supplements,” Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein wrote.

Similar suits charging that Wal-Mart violated state wage laws are in play across the country.

A California trial ended with a $172 million verdict that Wal-Mart is appealing while the Bentonville, Ark.-based company settled a Colorado suit for $50 million.

A trial opened last week in Minnesota while suits are pending in New Jersey and several other states.

The Pennsylvania class-action suit involves 187,000 current and former employees who worked at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Clubs from March 1998 through May 2006. The initial $78.5 million award represented the wages lost by those workers.

A smaller number Д about 125,000 Д qualified for the damage award Wednesday. The others were excluded by legal time limits and are seeking interest on the back wages.

“The law in its majesty applies equally to highly paid executives and minimum wage clerks,” Bernstein wrote.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Donovan credited Bernstein for recognizing in Wednesday’s ruling “that ordinary workers are entitled to the same protection under the law as executives.”

His clients have not yet received any money and likely won’t for some time if the company appeals. The payments for lost wages are expected to range from about $50 to a few thousand dollars, depending on employment history.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the company discourages employees from working off the clock and disciplines managers who permit it.

“Many employees testified that they skipped rest breaks by choice. While we discourage that practice, employers should not be penalized when employees do that on their own,” said the spokeswoman, Sharon Weber.

Wal-Mart shares rose 56 cents to $45.43 Wednesday in midday trading.

NEW YORK—Planned U.S. layoffs fell nearly 10 percent in September as the slump in housing continued to hurt payrolls, an independent report showed on Wednesday.

More than a third of last month’s 71,739 announced job cuts came from mortgage lenders, construction companies and real estate firms, according to employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. So far this year, about one job cut in six is directly related to the struggling housing market, it said.

Announced layoffs totaled 71,739 in September, down 9.7 percent from 79,459 in August, when it hit a six-month high. They were 28.5 percent lower than September 2006, when employers announced 100,315 job cuts, one of only two times last year when monthly job cuts exceeded 100,000.

Year to date, employers have announced 587,594 job cuts, 8.1 percent fewer than the 639,229 cuts announced in the same period a year ago. Housing-related job cuts in the financial, construction and real estate sectors account for 97,509 or 16.6 percent of this year’s job cuts. In contrast, these three sectors represented less than 2 percent of the January-through-September job-cut total in 2006.

“It appears that the automotive sector has stabilized for the time being, particularly since General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a labor agreement. Meanwhile, financial firms cannot cut their payrolls fast enough, especially in the mortgage lending sector,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.