A new antitrust claim has been submitted to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal involving BA Euroflyer Limited and associated British Airways entities against major payment networks Visa and Mastercard. The claim alleges that both card schemes implemented anti-competitive terms and unlawful fees regarding commercial payment card transactions, resulting in inflated charges for UK merchants.
Represented by law firm Harcus Parker, the claimants argue that the default multilateral interchange fees set by Visa and Mastercard directly breach Chapter I of the UK Competition Act 1998 and Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Under current scheme rules, acquiring banks must pay an interchange fee to issuing banks for every commercial card transaction unless alternative bilateral rates are agreed upon. Because acquirers pass these costs onto merchants through merchant service charges, the claimants contend that the default fee structure effectively creates an artificial price floor.
The legal challenge also targets specific cross-border acquiring rules enforced by both payment giants. These rules require acquiring banks operating outside their home jurisdiction to pay the default interchange fee of the country where the transaction occurs. According to the lawsuit, this framework artificially partitions the European market, restricts cross-border price competition among acquiring banks, and inflates domestic interchange fees paid by UK businesses.
The claimants assert that without these rules, acquirers would not have faced positive default interchange fees, and merchants would not have suffered from inflated service charges. They argue that the burden rests on Visa and Mastercard to demonstrate that their commercial card fee structures qualify for legal exemptions, claiming no positive interchange fee level satisfies statutory competition criteria.
The lawsuit covers alleged overcharges from October 2020 through the date of final judgment, as the alleged infringements remain ongoing. The claimants are seeking full damages calculated based on the difference between actual fees paid and a zero-interchange rate, alongside compound interest and legal costs.