Credit card surcharging is on the rise. Imposing a surcharge in a compliant manner is more than adding a fee at the point of sale. Below we review on a high level the legal and commercial considerations for merchants before...more
Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions - NEXSTEP, INC. v. COMCAST CABLE COMMUNICATIONS, LLC [OPINION] (2022-1815, 2022-2005, 2022-2113, 10/24/2024) (Reyna, Taranto, Chen) - Chen, J. The Court affirmed the...more
In October 2011, three related (or parallel) class action lawsuits were filed. These cases named Visa and Mastercard (and others) as defendants but are unrelated to the Interchange Fee case with the $5.5 billion settlement...more
UPDATE: In the massive antitrust class action against Visa, Mastercard and more than 25 banks, the deadline has been extended to February 4, 2025 for victims of overpaid credit or debit card transaction fees to file a claim...more
In the massive antitrust class action against Visa, Mastercard and more than 25 banks, the deadline has been extended for victims of overpaid credit or debit card transaction fees to file a claim to their share of the $5.54...more
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, July 12, 2024, is below. Marriott and its launch of a new small and medium sized business travel platform garnered most of the...more
Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, No. 22-1008 - Yesterday, the Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the six-year time limit to challenge a federal agency regulation under the...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
One of the questions that remains uncertain among looming federal and state “junk fee” and “drip pricing” bans in 2024 concerns the impact these rules will have on credit card surcharges. Surcharges are added to sale...more
On April 15, 2024, the United States Supreme Court declined certiorari in the case of National ATM Council, Inc. v. Visa Inc. The central issue raised in the petition was the depth of analysis a court must conduct at the...more
Our Financial Services Group summarizes the closely observed preliminary settlement agreement over the fees credit card companies and banks charge merchants....more
Last month, Congressman Richard Hudson (R-NC), along with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Congressman Andy Barr (R-KY), introduced legislation—the Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act —banning the use of a Merchant...more
Illustrating the importance of carefully drafting and reviewing language in a covenant not to sue, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the plain language of a covenant permitted a licensor to sue a...more
The sale of adult-use cannabis has been legalized in 24 states in the United States. But this does not mean there are no other legal impediments to the cannabis industry in those jurisdictions. For example, cannabis...more
Mastercard sent cease and desist letters to payment processors and banks last week. These letters demanded certain financial service providers to stop allowing marijuana transactions on MasterCard debit cards....more
Welcome to our weekly Online Travel Update. Expedia’s many announcements at its Explore 23: Connect conference this past week garnered most of the industry headlines, while Uber moved closer to becoming a full online travel...more
The Competition Appeal Tribunal has handed down a judgment determining several preliminary issues in the £17 billion collective action brought against Mastercard in relation to anti-competitive multilateral interchange fees,...more
Last week the Second Circuit issued a new decision affirming, with one exception, the approval of a $5.6 billion revised class action settlement in the long-running Visa/Mastercard antitrust litigation. (See my blog post on...more
Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, December 9, 2022, is below. Payments again feature prominently in this week’s Update as American Express (not to be outdone by Mastercard’s recent announcement)...more
Our weekly Online Travel Update for the week ending December 2, 2022, is below. This week’s Update features an important update on distributors’ use of so-called narrow parity provisions in Australia and takes a closer look...more
With the increased activity of state attorneys general, many companies today find themselves at the center of political battles over the role businesses play in driving social policy. We feature one recent example, as a case...more
A group of 24 AGs led by Montana AG Austin Knudsen and Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti sent a letter to the CEOs of three major credit card companies, American Express, MasterCard, and Visa, expressing their concerns about a...more
NY DFS Approves Crypto Platform, Prepaid Crypto Card to Launch in Argentina - According to a press release this week, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) has authorized two subsidiaries of Zero...more
This week’s Update features two stories detailing fintech’s growing influence on online travel. Regular readers of our Update know that we’ve featured a number of fintech and payment related stories this past year, with...more