TORONTO Canada’s Competition Tribunal on Tuesday dismissed an antitrust case against Visa and MasterCard over rules that require merchants to accept credit cards with higher fees without imposing surcharges, another in a growing list of antitrust probes against the card networks.
The decision means credit card networks may continue to bar merchants from imposing a surcharge on customers that use credit cards, especially premium cards.
The Competition Bureau, an independent government agency, had argued that the credit card company rules put customers at a disadvantage and suppress competition among card providers. In 2010 it asked the tribunal to strike them down.
The tribunal agreed that the rules have an adverse effect on competition, but said that under its legal interpretation the relevant section of Canada’s Competition Act does not apply.
The tribunal said it dropped the case against the card networks which control 90% of the Canadian market but refused to disclose the reason for its decision.
The Canadian tribunal said the proper venue for the merchants to take their complaints was the regulatory framework. Arguments made had little basis in “legislative history,” the commission said in the summary.
The Competition Bureau had sought an order that would have allowed merchants to refuse, discourage or impose surcharges on the use of premium cards that impose higher fees on sellers.
Yesterday’s ruling comes as Visa and MasterCard are facing a separate antitrust probe by European Union investigators and are working to settle an eight-year-old antitrust suit brought by U.S. merchants. That settlement appears threatened because many of the largest U.S. merchants have balked at the $7.2-billion deal, leaving its prospects for final approval by a federal judge questionable.
