Merchants Say Visa/MasterCard Rate Setting Violates Antitrust Laws

The Merchants Payments Coalition told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that Visa and MasterCard’s practices in setting credit and debit card interchange rates violate federal antitrust laws and need to be addressed by Congress.

“To answer the question posed by the title of today’s hearing, there are indeed crucial antitrust issues raised by interchange fees,” nationally known antitrust attorney W. Stephen Cannon said. “The collective setting of interchange fees represents on-going antitrust violations by the two leading payment card associations — Visa and MasterCard — that cost merchants and American consumers tens of billions of dollars annually. Hidden from consumers, these fees are in addition to the late fees, over-limit fees and other card fees with which consumers are only too familiar.”

Cannon is scheduled to testify on behalf of the MPC when the Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on “Credit Card Interchange Rates: Antitrust Concerns?” this morning in Washington. Cannon, currently president of the New York and Washington-based law firm Constantine Cannon, is former chief antitrust counsel to the Judiciary Committee, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and former general counsel of Circuit City Stores Inc. Formed last year to address rising interchange fees, the MPC’s member associations collectively represent about 2.7 million stores with approximately 50 million employees.