Sky News: Mastercard, Visa to be hit with £7.5 billion class action lawsuit

  • Investing.com
  • Stock Market News
Sky News: Mastercard, Visa to be hit with £7.5 billion class action lawsuit
Credit: © Reuters.

By Scott Kanowsky 

Investing.com -- Mastercard (NYSE: MA ) and Visa (NYSE: V ) face a series of potential multibillion-pound legal claims as a London-based law firm gears up to file a major class action lawsuit on behalf of British businesses, Sky News reported on Tuesday.

The outlet said that commercial litigation firm Harcus Parker is close to filing what it thinks could be among the largest competition compensation claims in British history.

The filing will argue that the two payments giants charged companies too much for multilateral interchange fees, or the amount companies pay banks to accept purchases made with a credit or debit card. According to Sky News, it will also allege that Mastercard and Visa - and not market forces - imposed the level of these fees on banks as a condition of doing business with them.

A source quoted by Sky News said the size of the legal action could be at a minimum of £7.5 billion (£1 = $1.2089), although the amount may ultimately be double that sum. Harcus Parker declined to comment in the report.

Mastercard and Visa have previously settled similar lawsuits regarding allegations of overcharged interchange fees. The two declined to comment to Sky News.

Add Chart to Comment

Comment Guidelines

We encourage you to use comments to engage with users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind: 

  • Enrich the conversation
  • Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
  • Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically.
  •  Use standard writing style. Include punctuation and upper and lower cases.
  • NOTE: Spam and/or promotional messages and links within a comment will be removed
  • Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user.
  • Don’t Monopolize the Conversation. We appreciate passion and conviction, but we also believe strongly in giving everyone a chance to air their thoughts. Therefore, in addition to civil interaction, we expect commenters to offer their opinions succinctly and thoughtfully, but not so repeatedly that others are annoyed or offended. If we receive complaints about individuals who take over a thread or forum, we reserve the right to ban them from the site, without recourse.
  • Only English comments will be allowed.

Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.

Drop an image here or Supported formats: *.jpg, *.png, *.gif up to 5mb

Error: File type not supported

Drop an image here or

100
Please try another search