European Commission Closes EPC ePayment Investigation

The European Commission announced it has closed the antitrust investigation observing the standardization process for online payments conducted by the European Payments Council.

The commission opened the investigation in September 2011 because they questioned the organization’s standard for online payments, specifically their ePayments framework. The commission was concerned that the EPC excluded new entrants that were not connected to a bank from the ePayments market from their framework.

During the investigation process, the EPC decided to cease further development of its ePayment framework as well as stop other standardization projects that had the same effect. Since this occurrence, the complainant, Sofort AG, dropped the complaint and the EC closed the investigation.

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