PITTSBURGH American Eagle Outfitters, a leading national clothing retailer, filed a new antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard this week, the latest in a new flurry of antitrust claims being launched against the card networks.
Also filing separate antitrust suits against the card networks this week were E-Z Mart Stores, Sheetz, The Pantry, PacWest Energy and Jackson Foods in California; AutoTrader in California; and Live Nation Entertainment and Cox Media in California.
The new suits are similar antitrust to actions filed against Visa and MasterCard this summer by Delta Airlines, the city of Houston and dozens of Texas-based merchants; and another one by ShopRite, a national supermarket chain;
The filing of the new antitrust suits comes as a federal court in New York is scheduled to hear arguments this morning whether to issue final approval of the landmark $7.2 billion antitrust settlement between Visa and MasterCard and millions of merchants nationwide over the setting of interchange fees.
American Eagle claims it brought the suit “for violations of federal and state antitrust laws resulting from Visa’s and MasterCard’s imposition upon American Eagle of millions of dollars in unlawful and excessive Interchange Fees associated with Credit and Debit Card transactions which occurred during the period from January 1, 2004 through November 27, 2012.”
“Throughout the Damages Period, Visa and MasterCard were the enterprises and/or instrumentalities through which the Member Banks that issued Visa and MasterCard Payment Cards agreed not to compete with respect to merchant acceptance of those cards and fixed the Interchange Fees that merchants paid for acceptance of those cards,” the clothing retailer claims.
American Eagle charges that Visa’s and MasterCard’s “anticompetitive conduct also has limited competition in the Payment Card markets, depriving participants in these markets of lower prices, innovation, new payment options, and cost-saving approaches that would have substantially benefited U.S. merchants and consumers.”
