Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Understanding the Federal Reserve Board Proposal to Lower Interchange Fee Cap for Debit Card Transactions
On August 15, several banking and credit union associations sued the Illinois Attorney General to prevent the state from implementing the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (the “Act”). As covered by InfoBytes, the...more
On August 15, 2024, the Illinois Bankers Association, American Bankers Association, America’s Credit Unions, and Illinois Credit Union League filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Illinois...more
Recently, the Governor of Illinois signed into law the state’s new budget (the “budget”) which will include a provision cited as the Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (the “Act”). The Act’s language was originally proposed as...more
The series of antitrust class action lawsuits first brought by U.S. merchants against Visa and Mastercard in 2006 continued its winding path toward closure as the parties announced in March 2024 that they had reached a...more
A very large class action settlement has an approaching deadline for class members to file claims. The class is very broad, defined as “all persons, businesses, and other entities that have accepted any Visa-Branded Cards...more
Our Financial Services Group summarizes the closely observed preliminary settlement agreement over the fees credit card companies and banks charge merchants....more
On April 9, 2024, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on credit card competition. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) requested testimony at the hearing from the following Chief Executive Officers who have publicly...more
This edition of Fintech Flash identifies key issues we anticipate will impact the payments industry in 2024. First, the payments regulatory landscape continues to evolve, with a number of proposed rulemakings published by the...more
On December 13, 2023, the Congressional Research Service issued a report titled How the Credit Card Competition Act of 2023 Could Affect Consumers, Merchants, and Banks highlighting potential issues for Congress....more
As we previously blogged, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (the “Board”) held an open meeting on October 25, 2023 to discuss the debit card interchange fee cap. The debit card interchange fee cap was part of the...more
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (FRB) is holding an open meeting on October 25, 2023 to discuss proposed revisions to the Board’s debit interchange fee cap contained in Regulation II, which implemented the...more
Card network giants, Visa and Mastercard, are getting scrutinized by the Senate Judiciary Committee over an increase in swipe fees....more
On April 8, 2022, the Japan Fair Trade Commission ("JFTC") published the Market Survey Report on Credit Card Transactions ("Report"). The JFTC conducted a survey on credit card transactions in order to ascertain disclosure of...more
Visa and Mastercard Delay Hike to Interchange Fees—US and UK Developments Visa and Mastercard announced on March 16 that they have postponed the scheduled plan to boost interchange fees, i.e., fees that U.S. merchants pay...more
Defendants in competition damages actions often argue that claimants mitigated any loss in competition damages claims by passing on any allegedly unlawful price increase to their customers. In Sainsbury’s v. Mastercard [2020]...more
In March we wrote that the European Commission (the “Commission”) had published its study on the application of the Interchange Fee Regulation (Regulation 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions, the...more
On June 17, 2020, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the appeals on the lawfulness of multilateral interchange fees, or swipe fees, (MIFs) in Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd (Respondent) v. Visa Europe Services LLC...more
In a landmark ruling the Court of Appeal has given another chance to a £14 billion class action against MasterCard. The first case of its kind, brought on behalf of 46 million UK consumers, stalled two years ago when the...more
On January 24, 2019, Judge Margo K. Brodie of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted preliminary approval of Visa and Mastercard’s second attempt to settle the 13-year old antitrust litigation...more
Will the second time be the charm? Two credit card networks and merchants representing the class suing them reached a revised agreement to put an end to a 13-year-old antitrust class action concerning the interchange fees...more
Visa, Inc., Mastercard, Inc., and other financial institutions have agreed to pay merchants between $5.56 billion and $6.26 billion to settle a 13-year old antitrust litigation. For years, the case has driven shrewd investors...more
Morgan Lewis has scored a landmark victory in the Court of Appeal for our client Sainsbury’s (a major retail grocer in the United Kingdom) against credit card company Visa in the Court of Appeal....more
The Second Circuit’s decision highlights that, whenever there are groups of plaintiffs that will obtain different categories of relief as a part of a settlement, both plaintiffs and defense counsel should seriously consider...more
In recent years, federal antitrust enforcers and businesses that accept payment cards have been waging a slow war against payment card fees and the card network rules that protect them. The payment card industry’s antitrust...more
On March 24th, the United Kingdom’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) issued final guidance establishing interchange fee caps on credit and debit card transactions where the point of sale is located in the United Kingdom. The...more