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United Kingdom

UK CAT holds Visa and Mastercard MIFs anticompetitive: pre-2015 by object; post-2015 by effect (majority); breach of statutory duty and damages; appeals and pass-on judgment pending

Published on: 30 June 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter
Legal News
Article summary

The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) handed down a partial ruling on actions brought by retailers over multilateral interchange charges, which are determined by Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc and are transferred by traders to acquiring banks whenever they take payments by debit or credit card. The CAT concluded that charges applied before 2015, when rules were introduced for UK and Irish consumer transactions, breached competition law 'by object', so evaluating their actual effects on rivalry was unnecessary in practice. The decision upheld a central contention from the merchants that Visa and Mastercard’s interchange charges set a 'floor' beneath the rates banks can levy, thereby removing price-based competition across transactions and preventing undercutting by acquiring banks. 'The Multilateral Interchange Fee short-circuits competition and distorts the process', the judgment formally stated. 'It is precisely the purpose of the multilateral interchange fee to achieve this...

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