In less than a week, Bloomberg reports three lawsuits have been brought in Washington that accuse FIs and networks of price-fixing ATM charges.
The latest antitrust case, filed by an ATM user from New Jersey, involves Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Visa and MasterCard, who were already facing other ATM antitrust suits, are named as defendants in this third case as well.
“The violation in this case is a horizontal agreement among every bank that is a member of the Visa and/or MasterCard networks that charges ATM access fees on foreign ATM transactions,” the complaint alleges.
The earlier suit against Visa and MasterCard claims the networks prevent independent ATM operators from “charging varying, lower prices for customers using alternative networks such as STAR, Shazam Inc. or TransFund,” according to Bloomberg. Jonathan Rubin of Washington, DC-based Rubin PLLC is representing the plaintiffs in the case against Visa and MasterCard.
“Visa and MasterCard are the ringleaders, organizers, and enforcers of a conspiracy among US banks to fix the price of ATM access fees in order to keep the competition at bay,” he said. “Were it not for these anticompetitive rules, Visa and MasterCard would face real competition for ATM services, consumers would pay lower prices for using ATMs, and more ATMs would be deployed.”
Click here to read the full Bloomberg article.
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