Visa, MasterCard Lose in Supreme Court Ruling

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Monday let stand a ruling that the Visa and MasterCard credit card associations violated federal antitrust law by barring their member banks from issuing credit and charge cards on the rival networks of American Express Co. and Morgan Stanley’s Discover Card.

Without any comment, the justices rejected separate appeals by Visa and MasterCard of a ruling that found their so-called exclusionary rules harmed competition.

The two appeals stemmed from a lawsuit brought in 1998 by the Justice Department over the membership rules by Visa and MasterCard, which operate as joint ventures owned by their member banking institutions.

A federal judge in New York ruled in 2001 that the rules were unlawful and ordered Visa and MasterCard to repeal them and to not adopt any similar policy in the future. A U.S. appeals court last year upheld that decision.

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