October 31, 2024
At least four antitrust class actions allege Visa forced merchants and consumers to pay artificially inflated prices for debit card transactions, mirroring the allegations of a U.S. Department of Justice complaint.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys have filed multiple antitrust class actions against Visa Inc. following the Sept. 24 U.S. Department of Justice complaint alleging the global payments company maintains an unlawful monopoly in U.S. debit card network services markets.
At least four class actions filed in New York or California federal courts since Oct. 1 allege Visa has forced merchants and consumers to pay artificially inflated prices for debit card transactions. All of these lawsuits demand treble or triple damages and an injunction that would end Visa’s alleged anticompetitive practices.
The litigation surge was surfaced by Law.com Radar.
Burns Charest sued Visa in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of Yabla Inc. Oct. 22—the same date Bathaee Dunne filed a class action in the Northern District of California on behalf of TD Bank Visa debit card customer Richard Pantano.
“Visa prevents innovators and rivals from meaningfully competing with Visa, forcing merchants to remain in overpriced contracts and try to recoup those absurd costs from their customers through surcharges and higher prices,” Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy alleged in a complaint filed Oct. 21 on behalf of Nuts for Candy in the SDNY.
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll accused Visa of violating the Sherman Act in an antitrust complaint filed in the SDNY Oct. 1 on behalf of All Wrapped Up Signs and Graphix.
Similar to the DOJ complaint, all four class actions accuse Visa of using exclusionary and anticompetitive conduct without any legal justification.
Read ‘Absurd Costs’? Visa Faces Antitrust Class-Action Surge Following DOJ Complaint.