Accrued Expenses and Accrued Litigation

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2014

Accrued Liabilities [Abstract]

Accrued Expenses and Accrued Litigation

Accrued Expenses and Accrued Litigation

Accrued expenses consisted of the following at December 31:

	2014		2013
	(in millions)
Customer and merchant incentives	$	1,433	$	1,286
Personnel costs	531		413
Advertising	154		149
Income and other taxes	105		95
Other	216		158
Total accrued expenses	$	2,439	$	2,101

Personnel costs as of December 31, 2014 include an accrual related to a severance charge of $87 million, recorded in the fourth quarter of 2014, in general and administrative expenses on the consolidated statement of operations.  The Company has restructured its organization to align with its strategic priorities and to best meet the Company’s continued growth. The Company expects to be substantially complete with these restructuring activities by the second quarter of 2015.

As of December 31, 2014 and December 31, 2013, the Company’s provision related to U.S. merchant litigations was $771 million and $886 million, respectively. These amounts are not included in the accrued expenses table above and are separately reported as accrued litigation on the consolidated balance sheet. The accrued litigation item at December 31, 2013 includes $68 million related to the timing of MasterCard’s administration of the short-term reduction in default credit interchange from U.S. issuers which expired in April 2014. During 2014, MasterCard executed settlement agreements with a number of opt-out merchants and no adjustment to the amount previously recorded was deemed necessary. See Note 18 (Legal and Regulatory Proceedings) for further discussion of the U.S. merchant class litigation.