Supreme Court to consider antitrust cases involving ATM fees
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether consumers and operators of independent ATMs can sue over an alleged antitrust conspiracy to keep ATM fees high.
The suits claim that Visa, MasterCard and their member banks conspired to fix access fees at ATMs that aren’t owned by the cardholder’s bank. The plaintiffs are challenging alleged rules that prevent independent ATM operators from charging lower amounts for transactions processed on networks that aren’t owned by Visa and MasterCard. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog and Reuters have stories.
The plaintiffs say the fee rules were set when Visa and MasterCard were owned by the banks. The banks contend that participation in a business association isn’t enough to support the plaintiffs’ accusations of an antitrust conspiracy.
The cases are Visa v. Osborn and Visa v. Stoumbos. The SCOTUSblog case pages are here and here.
