Memo: Antitrust: Commission welcomes Court judgment confirming that MasterCard’s payment card interchange fees are anti-competitive

The European Commission welcomed the judgement of the 11 September 2014 by the European Court of Justice in the MasterCard case (case C-382/12P). The judgment confirmed that MasterCard's inter-bank fees for cross-border payment transactions in the European Economic Area (EEA) restrict competition in the Internal Market, in breach of EU competition rules.

The Court held in particular that Multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) are a restriction of competition since they limit the pressure which merchants can exert on acquiring banks when negotiating the costs charged by those banks and that MIFs are not objectively necessary to operate the MasterCard system.

ESO: Background information: Press Release: Antitrust: Commission opens investigation into MasterCard inter-bank fees http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-antitrust-commission-opens-investigation-into-mastercard-inter-bank-fees/

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