Commercial card claim
“… it is worth reflecting on the nature of an industry dominated by a global duopoly that can get away with quintupling a charge from one day to the next.”
The Financial Times, 1 February 2021
Commercial card claim
“The decisive question is whether in the absence of the MIF the prices acquirers charge to merchants at large would be lower. This is the case, because the price each individual bank could charge to merchants would be fully determined by competition rather than to a large extent by a collective decision among (or on behalf of) the banks”
European Commission, Decision of 19 December 2007 (COMP/34.579, COMP/36.518, COMP/38.580)
Commercial card claim
“Over the course of lengthy investigations in Europe going back many years and, more recently, litigation in the UK, multilateral interchange fees levied by Mastercard and Visa have been found to be anti-competitive, and therefore unlawful. Businesses have been affected by these fees to the tune of billions of pounds and deserve to be properly compensated.”
Jeremy Robinson, Competition Law and Regulation Partner at Harcus Parker
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Find out what the case is about and how to join
Mastercard and Visa are unlawfully overcharging businesses for accepting credit and debit card payments on corporate cards, both credit and debit. If your business accepts card payments, read on to find out what the commercial card claim is about, whether your business can claim, and if so, how you can join.
The claim against Mastercard and Visa for anticompetitive multilateral interchange fees
Claims have been filed in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) against Mastercard and Visa for breaching competition law. The CAT is the UK’s specialist judicial body for competition law. The claims are brought on behalf of all businesses that accept card payments. A hearing has been set for 17-19 April 2024 for the CAT to decide whether the claims should proceed.
Whenever a customer, guest, or passenger pays a merchant by card, the merchant’s bank will pay a “Multilateral Interchange Fee” or “MIF” to the card-holder’s bank. The MIF makes up the largest part of the Merchant Service Charge, which the merchant’s bank will charge the merchant in return for the right to accept card payment. MIFs increase costs for business owners.
The MIF is a percentage of the value of a transaction. The MIF, however, is not set unilaterally by banks in accordance with market competition. It is set by the card schemes, Mastercard and Visa, and imposed on banks as a condition of their participation in the scheme. The banks then pass on the charges to their customers. Since it is the merchant’s bank that pays the MIF, it is your bank that passes this charge to you or your business.
A fully-funded and insured claim
In past EU and UK litigation, EU and UK MIFs were found to be anti-competitive, and therefore unlawful. The European Commission and the EU Court of Justice clamped down on consumer card interchange fees on an EEA and inter-regional basis, and the UK Supreme Court followed suit for UK consumer card interchange fees. However, there have been no court rulings yet of unlawfulness for MIFs on corporate cards on debit and credit card transactions.
Unlike other claims filed in court on behalf of individual companies, which are primarily directed at UK MIFs and other MIFs only by extension, this commercial card claim covers all businesses that accept UK credit or debit card payments and specifically addresses MIFs that have not yet been adjudicated by the courts.
If the Tribunal agrees with our claim that these MIFs are also unlawful, and should be zero, that means businesses will have lost money and deserve to be compensated for the MIFs they have paid. Although the UK has left the EU, it is still possible to bring infringements of EU competition law in the English courts, for losses incurred up to and including the date of the UK’s departure from the EU, 31 December 2020.
That is why we are bringing this class action against Mastercard and Visa, aiming to compensate businesses for their past losses.
Our objectives in bringing this class action against Mastercard and Visa are: firstly, to seek damages plus interest for past losses suffered by businesses, and secondly, to end unlawful charges for the future.
This class action against Mastercard and Visa is fully-funded and insured. A claimant will not need to set aside any budget to participate in the case. If the case does not succeed (on both the opt-in and opt-out sides), claimants will pay nothing – either towards our costs, or towards the other sides.