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Canada: Tribunal releases swipe-fee decision

By  |  September 10, 2013

Canada’s Competition Tribunal has released its decision that tossed the Competition Bureau’s antitrust case against credit card giants Visa and MasterCard regarding their swipe-fees last July, crushing the Bureau’s efforts to allow retailers to reject high-fee credit cards or impose surcharges on customers to make up for the credit card companies’ costs.

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    The Bureau said it s reviewing the Tribunal’s decision. The Tribunal kept confidential some of its reasoning for dismissing the case without costs.

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    The Commissioner of Competition was looking to allow merchants to reject cards with high swipe-fees, charged to retailers every time a credit card is used at the register, or to transfer the burden of those fees onto consumers. Such swipe-fees are worth $233 billion a year, 90 percent of which involves Visa or MasterCard.

    The full text of the Tribunal’s decision can be read here.

    Full Content: Bloomberg

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