Short answer
Yellowstone Capital is out of the merchant cash advance business. In January 2025 a New York court entered a settlement with the Attorney General that cancelled $534 million in merchant debt, vacated judgments across 28 counties, and permanently barred the Yellowstone companies and two executives from the MCA industry. If you had a Yellowstone advance, your balance is already gone and you do not need to do anything to make that true. The deadlines to claim a settlement payment and to request lien termination have both passed.
This page summarizes what the public record shows as of September 20, 2026. It is drawn from the New York Attorney General's own settlement page, which was last updated on April 16, 2026, and from the court docket in the underlying case. It is not legal advice, and it does not tell you what to do about an advance from any other funder.
What the Attorney General alleged
Attorney General Letitia James sued Yellowstone Capital and its subsidiaries in March 2024. The core of the case was not that Yellowstone charged too much for a merchant cash advance. It was that the products were not merchant cash advances at all.
The lawsuit alleged three things. First, that Yellowstone was providing loans rather than MCAs. Second, that the interest rates on those loans were far higher than New York law allows. Third, that Yellowstone used deception and fraud to collect on them.
That first allegation is the one that carries all the weight. A genuine merchant cash advance is a purchase of future receivables, and because it is a purchase rather than a loan it sits outside New York's usury limits. If a court decides the same paperwork actually describes a loan, the usury ceiling applies retroactively and the entire pricing structure becomes unlawful. The whole case turns on that reclassification.
What the settlement actually did
The settlement was submitted to the court on December 2, 2024 and entered by the court on January 16, 2025. The Attorney General announced it as a settlement worth more than $1 billion.
- March 2024
The Attorney General sues Yellowstone Capital, its subsidiaries, its officers, Delta Bridge Funding and a group of individual funders.
- December 2, 2024
Settlement with the Yellowstone companies and two executives submitted to the court.
- January 16, 2025
Settlement entered by the court and takes effect.
- March 21, 2025
Rust Consulting, the settlement administrator, mails and emails notices to merchants eligible for relief.
- April 29, 2025
First batch of Yellowstone judgments vacated by the court.
- July 8, 2025
Deadline to request termination of a UCC lien.
- December 18, 2025
Final batch of Yellowstone judgments vacated.
- January 9, 2026
Deadline to submit a claim for a settlement payment or for vacatur of a judgment.
- March 4, 2026
Court rejects the motion to dismiss brought by Delta Bridge and the remaining individuals. All of the Attorney General's claims proceed.
- April 3, 2026
Rust mails settlement payments to qualifying claimants.
The relief came in four parts, and the important thing about the first two is that they were automatic.
Debt cancellation.
All merchant debts to the Yellowstone companies, totalling $534 million, were cancelled automatically. That includes balances owed by a business and balances owed by an owner who personally guaranteed the advance. It also includes the remaining balance on any settlement a merchant had already negotiated with Yellowstone.
Collection prohibited.
Yellowstone is barred from taking any action to collect a cancelled debt, and from selling that debt to anyone else to collect.
Judgments vacated.
In each New York county where Yellowstone held a judgment against a merchant, the court ordered those judgments vacated. The county orders run from Albany and the Bronx through to Westchester, 28 counties in total.
Liens terminated.
Yellowstone terminated outstanding UCC liens on request, up to the July 8, 2025 deadline.
The outcome for the companies themselves was terminal. The Yellowstone companies and the two executives covered by the settlement are permanently barred from the MCA industry, and are required to cooperate in the Attorney General's ongoing lawsuit and in any other OAG investigation concerning merchant cash advances.
Which companies are covered
This matters more than it looks, because Yellowstone rarely appeared on the contract under that name. The settlement names 25 companies, and a merchant who only remembers the name on their bank statement may not recognise any connection to Yellowstone at all.
The named companies are Yellowstone Capital LLC, ABC Merchant Solutions LLC, Advance Merchant Services LLC, Business Advance Team LLC, Capital Advance Services LLC, Capital Merchant Services LLC, Cash Village Funding LLC, Fast Cash Advance LLC, Fundry LLC, Fundzio LLC, Green Capital Funding LLC, HFH Merchant Services LLC, High Speed Capital LLC, Merchant Capital Pay LLC, Merchant Funding Services LLC, Midnight Advance Capital LLC, Mr. Advance Capital LLC, Ocean 1213 LLC, Simply Equities LLC, TVT Cap Fund LLC, TVT Capital HR LLC, Thryve Capital Funding LLC, WCM Funding LLC, West Coast Business Capital LLC, formerly known as Yellowstone Capital West, and World Global Capital LLC.
One important limitation is that the name printed at the top of your contract is often a doing business as name rather than the legal entity. The Attorney General's guidance is to read the first paragraph of the agreement itself, and to check which company was actually debiting your bank account, because the broker you dealt with was frequently a different business from the funder.
Delta Bridge and Cloudfund are a separate and still open case
This is the part most coverage of the settlement gets wrong, and it is the part that affects merchants who are still making payments today.
Delta Bridge Funding, also known as Cloudfund
Delta Bridge took over Yellowstone's business in May 2021. It was named in the same lawsuit, alongside individual members of management and the individual funders who worked directly with merchants. None of those parties settled.
The Attorney General has asked the court to rule that MCAs issued by Delta Bridge are illegal loans and to order the company to stop collecting on them. The court has not yet ruled on that request.
The outcome so far is that Delta Bridge tried to have the case thrown out and failed. On March 4, 2026 the court rejected the motion to dismiss and held that all of the Attorney General's claims could proceed. The case continues under index number 450750/2024 in New York County Supreme Court, and the docket is public.
What the record does not give you is any basis for treating a Delta Bridge or Cloudfund advance as cancelled. The Yellowstone settlement does not apply to Delta Bridge, to Cloudfund, or to any other MCA company. A merchant with a Delta Bridge advance is in an active dispute that has survived a dismissal motion, which is meaningfully different from having no case and also meaningfully different from having won one.
If you had a Yellowstone advance, where things stand now
The deadlines have closed, so the practical position depends on which kind of relief you needed.
Debt cancellation required nothing from you and has no deadline. If you owed a balance to any of the 25 named companies on an MCA agreement, that balance was cancelled when the settlement took effect. If someone is still contacting you about a Yellowstone debt, that contact is itself a violation of the settlement, and the Attorney General's office accepts complaints about exactly that.
Settlement payments are finished. Merchants qualified only if they submitted a claim by January 9, 2026 and had paid Yellowstone more than they received. Rust mailed those payments on April 3, 2026. The Attorney General has stated plainly that because of the number of Yellowstone victims who submitted claims, the settlement fund was insufficient to compensate all victims for their losses in full, and that the payment amounts are final.
The practical takeaway is that the debt relief was the real remedy here and the cash was not. A merchant who paid Yellowstone far more than they borrowed did not get made whole. What they got was the balance wiped, the judgment vacated and the lien released. For most of the businesses involved that was the difference between closing and continuing, but it is not compensation.
What this case does and does not tell you about other funders
It is tempting to read a billion dollar judgment as a verdict on the entire merchant cash advance industry. It is not, and treating it that way will lead you to the wrong decision about your own contract.
The Yellowstone case was brought under New York law, by a New York Attorney General, against companies operating in New York. It turned on a specific factual finding about how those specific agreements were written and collected. It does not make merchant cash advances unlawful, it does not cancel anyone else's advance, and it does not give a merchant in another state a ready made claim.
What it does establish is that the reclassification argument works. A regulator took the position that advances structured this way were disguised loans, and rather than litigate that to judgment the funder accepted a permanent industry ban and wrote off half a billion dollars. That is a data point worth understanding if your own agreement has the features the Attorney General objected to.
Frequently asked questions
Is my Yellowstone debt really cancelled, or do I need to apply?
It is cancelled automatically. If you had an outstanding balance to any of the 25 named Yellowstone companies on an MCA agreement, no application was required and no deadline applies to the cancellation itself. Yellowstone is also prohibited from selling that debt to a third party for collection.
Someone is still trying to collect a Yellowstone debt from me. What should I do?
Collection on a cancelled Yellowstone debt is prohibited under the settlement. The Attorney General's office specifically accepts complaints about Yellowstone continuing to try to collect, and you can file one through the OAG complaint form. Keep the contact details, dates and any documents.
Can I still get a settlement payment?
No. The claim deadline was January 9, 2026 and payments were mailed on April 3, 2026. Only merchants who filed by the deadline and who had paid Yellowstone more than they received qualified. The amounts are final and neither Rust Consulting nor the Attorney General can reconsider them.
My advance was from Delta Bridge or Cloudfund. Is that cancelled too?
No. The settlement applies only to the 25 named Yellowstone companies. Delta Bridge and Cloudfund are defendants in the ongoing lawsuit, and the court rejected their motion to dismiss on March 4, 2026, but it has not yet ruled on whether their advances are illegal loans. Nothing about the Yellowstone settlement cancels a Delta Bridge balance.
How do I tell whether my advance was really from Yellowstone?
Read the first paragraph of the agreement rather than the name at the top, because the name at the top is often a doing business as name. Check which company debited your business bank account. If you no longer have the contract, old emails may name an intermediary rather than the actual funder, so the bank statement is usually the more reliable record.
Does this case mean merchant cash advances are illegal?
No. The case alleged that these particular agreements were loans disguised as advances and were therefore subject to New York usury limits. It was settled rather than decided on the merits as to Yellowstone, and it does not make merchant cash advances unlawful generally or affect an advance from a different funder.
If the payments are the problem
If your business is carrying an advance from a funder that is still collecting, the Yellowstone settlement does not help you. What matters then is the structure of your own agreement, what the funder can actually enforce, and what a realistic restructuring looks like given your deposits. That is a conversation worth having before the next debit clears rather than after.
