The United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, has sued American Express, MasterCard, and Visa, alleging that each credit card network imposes anticompetitive rules prohibiting merchants from (1) encouraging customers to use a different form of payment or brand of credit card by offering a discount or any other incentive; and (2) expressing a preference for a particular brand, or informing their customers about the merchant's relative cost to accept, particular card brands. The complaint further alleges that each defendant independently possesses market power and that the merchant restraints thus constitute anticompetitive vertical agreements violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act.Along with the complaint, the Division filed a proposed consent decree with Visa and MasterCard that broadly prohibits blanket rules that would bar a merchant from incentivizing its customers to use a particular credit card brand or, interestingly, card type. The consent decree defines card type as a category of credit card such as "traditional cards, reward cards, or premium cards." The decree would thus empower merchants not only to steer customers to a particular card brand, but also to steer customers to particular types of cards within a card brand. For example, merchants might attempt to steer card users toward lower priced (for the merchant) traditional cards and away from reward cards. The decree explicitly permits Visa and MasterCard to continue to prohibit merchants from discriminating among particular bank issuers. It also allows the settling defendants to negotiate individual merchant agreements that include the prohibited restraints, so long as acceptance of the card brand is not conditioned on the merchant's agreement to the restraints.
American Express has vowed to fight the case.
By seeking to promote a competitive solution to what many consider unjustifiably high merchant card acceptance fees, the Division has staked out an alternative ground to the regulatory approach to merchant fees that Congress recently imposed for debit cards. The relief sought is cautious, however, in that the card networks may continue to prohibit (1) surcharges for particular brands or card types, and (2) efforts by merchants to discriminate in any way against particular card-issuing banks within the Visa and MasterCard systems.
