The settlement comes about seven months after Visa paid more than $2.1 billion to American Express to put similar claims behind as it as raced ahead with plans for an initial public offering in March. MasterCard, which went public two years ago, had been under pressure to resolve the suit since uncertainty surrounding the litigation was one of the few clouds hanging over the rapidly rising stock.

Under the terms of the deal, MasterCard will make the $1.8 billion in payments to American Express in quarterly installments over three years. It will book an after-tax charge of approximately $1 billion for the settlement costs in the second quarter.

The agreement, reached late Tuesday night, brings the total that American Express has collected to more than $4 billion. That makes it the richest in corporate history. With losses rising and the economy slowing, the deal comes at a time when American Express could use the money.

“Business conditions continue to weaken in the U.S. and so far this month we have seen credit indicators deteriorate beyond our expectations,” the chairman and chief executive of American Express, Kenneth I. Chenault, said in a statement. “The antitrust settlement we’ve reached with MasterCard provides us with a multi-year source of funds that should, among other things, help to lessen the impact of this weakening economic cycle and, when conditions improve, give us the ability to step up investments in the business.”

In a separate statement, the chief executive of MasterCard, Robert W. Selander, said the settlement eliminated “the uncertainty, time commitment, and expense of a prolonged court case” and kept the company’s balance sheet intact.

The announcement early Wednesday comes more than three years after the Supreme Court ruled that Visa and MasterCard had violated antitrust rules by barring their member banks from offering credit cards that could be used on rival payment networks.

American Express and Discover Financial quickly filed suit, seeking billions of dollars in damages based on the revenue they believed they had lost.

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