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Twenty years after the start of the procedure, MasterCard, supported ad litem by a few financial institutions (Banco Santander S.A., Royal Bank of Scotland plc, HSBC Bank plc, Bank of Scotland plc, Llyods TSB Bank plc, MBNA Europe Bank Ltd), has lost yet another battle against the European Union. The General Court(1) indeed confirmed on May 24th the Commission’s decision(2) prohibiting multilateral interchange fees (“MIFs”) within the MasterCard’s payment system as contrary to EU competition law.
In the four-party MasterCard system, an interchange fee is retained by the consumer’s bank (the “issuing bank”) and charged to the merchant’s bank (the “acquiring bank”) for each sales transaction made at merchant outlet with a payment card. In the absence of bilateral...
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