UK Tribunal Allows Class Action Lawsuits Against Visa, Mastercard

Visa and Mastercard are facing new lawsuits over multilateral interchange fees.

The United Kingdom Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled Friday (June 7) that collective proceedings — which are similar to class action lawsuits in the United States — brought on behalf of merchants can proceed, Reuters reported Friday.

The two global payment processors already face several lawsuits in London over the fees retailers pay when consumers use a card for purchases, according to the report.

The cases certified Friday were brought by Commercial and Interregional Card Claims, a special purpose vehicle, in 2022, the report said. They allege that merchants were overcharged and were owed damages.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal refused to certify the cases in June 2023 but did so Friday, per the report.

When halting the proposed lawsuits in June 2023, the Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that they could not proceed at the time but that the lawyers could later provide revised proposals.

Visa and Mastercard argued at the time that the other lawsuits they faced in the U.K. over multilateral interchange fees negated the need for Commercial and Interregional Card Claims.

In another recent development around interchange fees — this one in the United States — Mastercard and Visa reached a class action settlement with U.S. merchants in March, in a deal that aimed to end 20 years of antitrust litigation around swipe fees and restrictions placed on merchants.

Mastercard, Visa and the plaintiffs’ lawyers said at the time that the deal would lower credit interchange rates and cap them for five years.

They said the deal would also give merchants more choice in how they accept digital payments, including allowing them to steer their customers to the merchants’ preferred payment methods and placing a surcharge on purchases made with credit cards.

PYMNTS reported at the time that while the processing fees may be lower for merchants, what comes next may leave consumers less than thrilled.

The broader implications of the dual routing agreement in the U.S. may have a wider ripple effect on some of the things consumers value most as they wield their cards at the point of sale, such as rewards programs and payments security.