The so-called interchange fees set by Visa and Mastercard that have to paid by retailers on all card purchases are illegal, the UK Supreme Court said on Wednesday.[1] This means that Visa and Mastercard will now definitely be faced with potential billion pound follow-on damages claims from merchants.

Whenever a customer uses a credit/debit card to make a purchase in a store, the merchant´s bank account must pay a transaction fee to the card-issuing bank of the customer.  These fees are called multilateral interchange fees (MIF). The UK Supreme Court said Wednesday that the MIFs charged within the Visa and Mastercard payment card schemes are illegal.

This decision has major implications for Visa and Mastercard, because numerous damages claims have already been initiated by merchants in the UK and now it is clear that all these procedures can proceed to a trial to decide compensation. According to the lead counsel of J Sainsbury, the potential damages could amount to a billion pounds.

In July 2018, the high court decided already that the interchange fees of the companies were restricting competition and breached UK and European competition rules.[2] This decision has (for the most part) been confirmed by the decision of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court confirmed i.a. that Visa and Mastercard had to meet a more onerous evidential standard than that normally applicable in civil litigation with regard to proving that the interchange fee model should be exempt from European competition rules. One of the conditions in order to qualify for an exemption is that the efficiencies and benefits for the consumers (here: the merchants) outweigh the disadvantages they have to bear as a result of the restriction of competition. The Supreme Court said that the adverse effects should be outweighed by the benefits for (in this case) the merchants in so far that they would be fully compensated for the disadvantages. Visa and Mastercard did not succeed in proving that the merchants benefitted of the interchange fee model to that extent.

The procedures stem from a decision of the European Commission of 2007.[3] In that decision, the Commission found that the interchange fees of Mastercard were illegally high for 15 years. The Commission did however not decide whether the interchange fee as such would be illegal. The decision of the UK Supreme Court clarifies that this is the case.

We reported on these proceedings and their background in multiple editions of our Cartel Damages Litigation Quarterly Report in Q (2018-QI, Q3 and 4, and 2017-Q2, Q3 and Q4).

[1] UK Supreme Court 17 June 2020, [2020] UKSC 24.

[2]  Court of Appeal 4 July 2018, 2018 EWCA Civ 1536.

[3]  European Commission decision of 19 December 2007, case COMP/34.579 (Mastercard).