MARSHALL, Texas -- Convenience-store retailers Kwik Trip Inc., Allsup's Convenience Stores Inc., RaceTrac Petroleum Inc., QuickChek Corp., QuikTrip Corp. (and QuikTrip West Inc.) and Wawa Inc., along with BSN Sports LLC, ADFP Management Inc., Citi Trends Inc. and Waffle House Inc. filed a lawsuit on May 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., accusing them of conspiracy and restraint of trade over excessive credit- and debit-card interchange fees or swipe fees.
In court documents, the plaintiffs said that “Visa and MasterCard have in the past and continue to manage, coordinate and govern a combination and conspiracy in restraint of trade within the meaning of the Sherman Antitrust Act” in imposing unfair swipe-fee rules, which the plaintiffs call “competitive restraints.”
They continue, “Because Visa and MasterCard have as their members nearly all card issuers in the United States, and because those card issuers have agreed to rules that preclude them from independently competing for merchant acceptance, Visa and MasterCard and their members have obtained and maintained market power in the market for merchant acceptance of credit cards and … debit cards in the United States. The exercise of this market power has led merchants to pay excessive interchange fees. In this manner, Visa and MasterCard have unlawfully restrained competition in these markets.
“The principal rules that constitute the competitive restraints are the setting of ‘default’ interchange fees, the honor all cards rules, the all outlets rules, the no discount rules and the no surcharge rules. These rules have precluded merchants from gaining the benefits of competition as to the terms for the acceptance of cards of particular issuing banks and have precluded card issuers from competing for merchant acceptance of their cards. As a consequence, the setting of default interchange fees effectively fixes the price of acceptance at a supra-competitive level.”
The concluded, “Plaintiffs have paid significantly higher costs to accept Visa-branded and MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards than they would if the Member Banks issuing such cards competed for merchant acceptance.”
The plaintiffs seek actual damages for acts and omissions occurring prior to Nov. 27, 2012 (and “treble damages on all actual damages found by the trier of fact”); attorneys’ fees; costs of the suit; and pre-and post-judgment interest at the maximum rate permitted by law. “Further, because their wrongful conduct was committed in combination and as part of a conspiracy, the defendants should be jointly and severally liable for all damages found by the trier of fact.”
The retailers are also demanding a jury trial.
The case is BSN Sports LLC, et al. v. Visa Inc., et al., No. 2:15-cv-00711.
In December 2013, Visa and MasterCard won approval for a $5.7 billion settlement over allegations that credit-card swipe fees are improperly fixed.
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