The European Commission fines Mastercard €570 million for limiting merchants’ access to cross-border card payment services

ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT, EU, PUBLIC ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENTLeave a comment

On January 22, 2019, the European Commission fined Mastercard €570 million on the assumption that its card scheme limited the possibility for merchants to benefit from better conditions offered by banks established elsewhere in the Single Market in contrast with the European competition rules. Mastercard offers a bank card scheme in the European Economic Area…

THE COMMISSION ISSUES STATEMENT OF OBJECTIONS AGAINST MASTERCARD IN RELATION TO CARD PAYMENT COSTS

ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT, Cartels, Open Proceeding, PUBLIC ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENTLeave a comment

On 9 July 2015, following formal proceedings launched in April 2013, the European Commission issued a Statement of Objections against MasterCard in which it formulated competition concerns in relation to the costs of card payments in the EU. Under discussion are interchange fees paid by the retailer’s bank (the ‘acquiring bank’) to the bank of…