MasterCard will be subject to a class action suit over anti-competitive and deceptive fees<\/a >. <\/p>\n
This may not seem to be a big deal to Americans, but this is a first in British jurisprudence, and marks a major change in consumer law: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a 14 billion pound ($18.5 billion) class action to proceed against Mastercard for allegedly overcharging more than 46 million people in Britain over a 15-year period in a landmark judgment.<\/p>\n
The complex case, brought after Mastercard lost an appeal against a 2007 European Commission ruling that its fees were anti-competitive, could entitle adults in Britain to 300 pounds each if it is successful.<\/p>\n
The court dismissed a Mastercard appeal, setting the scene for Britain\u2019s first mass consumer claim brought under a new legal regime and establishing a standard for a string of other, stalled class actions.<\/p>\n
\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
The case will now be sent back to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), nominated in 2015 to oversees Britain\u2019s fledgling, U.S.-style \u201copt-out\u201d collective class actions for breaches of UK or European Union competition law.<\/p>\n
\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
The case centres on so-called interchange fees which credit and debit card companies say they levy on merchants\u2019 banks to cover the costs of card services, security and innovation. <\/p>\n
\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
Anthony Maton, the global vice-chair of law firm Hausfeld, which is advising on other class actions, said: \u201cThis is a revolution in English law.\u201d <\/p>\n
<\/span ><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is indeed a big move, and a welcome one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MasterCard will be subject to a class action suit over anti-competitive and deceptive fees. This may not seem to be a big deal to Americans, but this is a first in British jurisprudence, and marks a major change in consumer law: The UK Supreme Court on Friday allowed a 14 billion pound ($18.5 billion) class …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[620,456,407,570],"class_list":["post-175734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-consumer-protections","tag-finance","tag-justice","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}