The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it is suing payment card issuer Visa for anticompetitive practices in the United States. In the complaint, filed in a New York court, U.S. authorities accuse Visa of abusing its dominant market position to impose exclusivity agreements on banks and merchants.
“We allege that Visa has unlawfully acquired the power to charge fees that far exceed what (the company) could obtain in a competitive market,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Merchants and banks pass these costs on to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing, but the price of virtually everything,” he added.
“Visa is afraid of competition”
Visa controls more than 60 percent of U.S. debit card transactions, from which it collects fees of more than $7 billion a year, according to estimates by the Justice Department. The Justice Department also accuses the San Francisco-based company of “maintaining its monopoly” by entering into non-compete agreements with potential rivals.
“Visa is afraid of competition and therefore abuses its monopoly position to hold back existing rivals in the debit field and buy potential rivals to the detriment of consumers, merchants, banks and the competition process itself,” also deplored a senior official of the antitrust section of the Ministry of Justice, Doha Mekki, quoted in the text.
In 2021, Visa announced that it was the target of an investigation by the department into its practices in the United States concerning debit cards, in a document sent to the American securities regulator (SEC).
