Merchants sue Visa, MasterCard over fees

Merchants sue Visa, MasterCard over fees

SEP. 26 1:34 P.M. ET Four merchant associations on Monday filed an antitrust, class-action lawsuit against Visa USA Inc., MasterCard Inc. and a number of top U.S. banks for allegedly colluding to set credit card transaction fees at anticompetitive levels.

MasterCard and Visa already face a number of retailer lawsuits that claim fees paid on each transaction amount to price fixing, and are designed to stifle competition. Both credit-card associations — valued for their processing networks as much as their brand names — derive most of their profits from the fees.