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This lawsuit is principally about the interchange fees attributable to merchants that accepted Visa or Mastercard credit or debit cards between January 1, 2004 and January 25, 2019, and Visa’s and Mastercard’s rules for merchants that have accepted those cards.
The Rule 23(b)(3) Class Plaintiffs claim that:
Visa, and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they set interchange fees.
Mastercard and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they set interchange fees.
Visa and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they imposed and enforced rules that limited merchants from steering their customers to other payment methods. Those rules include so-called no-surcharge rules, no-discounting rules, honor-all-cards rules, and certain other rules. Doing so insulated them from competitive pressure to lower the interchange fees.
Mastercard and its respective member banks, including the Bank Defendants, violated the law because they imposed and enforced rules that limited merchants from steering their customers to other payment methods. Those rules include so-called no-surcharge rules, no-discounting rules, honor-all-cards rules, and certain other rules. Doing so insulated them from competitive pressure to lower the interchange fees.
Visa and Mastercard conspired together about some of the business practices challenged.
Visa and its respective member banks continued in those activities despite the fact that Visa changed its corporate structure and became a publicly owned corporation after this case was filed.
Mastercard and its respective member banks continued in those activities despite the fact that Mastercard changed its corporate structure and became a publicly owned corporation after this case was filed.
The Defendants’ conduct caused the merchants to pay excessive interchange fees for accepting Visa and Mastercard cards.
But for Defendants’ conduct there would have been no interchange fee or those fees would have been lower.
The Defendants say they have done nothing wrong. They claim their business practices are legal, justified, the result of independent competition and have benefitted merchants and consumers.
