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Speaker 1: MasterCard want a key round in a high stakes fight

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Speaker 1: in the UK over the swipe fees charged to merchants

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Speaker 1: for credit and debit card transactions. The UK Competition Appeal

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Speaker 1: Tribunals set consumers can't proceed as a group in a

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Speaker 1: lawsuit that sought eighteen billion dollars on behalf of some

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Speaker 1: forty six million people unless reverse. The ruling means consumers

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Speaker 1: will have to foul individual lawsuits to collect damages for

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Speaker 1: swipe fees that the European Court of Justice three years

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Speaker 1: ago found to be anti competitive. With us to talk

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Speaker 1: about the ruling and its implications, is I tour or

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Speaker 1: tease a litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence? I tour. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for joining us. Let's start just tell us what MasterCard

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Speaker 1: was accused of doing wrong in this case. Hi, great,

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Speaker 1: Thanks thanks for having me this help um. Master Card

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Speaker 1: in the first place established a scheme fixing the swipe

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Speaker 1: fees that the merchants has to pay for credit and

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Speaker 1: they with cart transactions. In view of the European Commission,

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Speaker 1: this uh fig this swipe fish where anti competitive and

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Speaker 1: prevented the banks from offering lower fish to merchants. Therefore,

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Speaker 1: they were causing UM harm for consumers and for the

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Speaker 1: merchants and um I tour. This is the second case

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Speaker 1: that has failed to be we would call it certified

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Speaker 1: as a class action. Is there concern that this tribunal

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Speaker 1: may not be certifying any class actions in the near future?

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Speaker 1: The private sectory practitioners has already raised the issue that

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Speaker 1: the court may not be inclined to certify this kind

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Speaker 1: of UH class action type proceedings in the UK. But

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Speaker 1: the UK Court, the UK Tribunal that issue this the

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Speaker 1: ruling the last Friday actually in the in the ruling

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Speaker 1: states that despite that some consumers might not be compensated

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Speaker 1: for this claim. The claim didn't proceed because I didn't

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Speaker 1: comply with the law, But somehow it didn't close the

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Speaker 1: doors for other plaintiffs to come up with new claims

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Speaker 1: a new class action type proceedings to the court. What

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Speaker 1: tell us a little more about that reasoning? What was

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Speaker 1: it about this case that prompted the court to say no,

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Speaker 1: it cannot go forward as as a group lawsuit or

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Speaker 1: the equivalence of a class action UM. Everything points at

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Speaker 1: the economic evidence in this case. UM the plaintiffs and

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Speaker 1: the experts brought by the plaintiffs apparently didn't UH didn't

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Speaker 1: submitting that evidence. It couldn't convince the court that they

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Speaker 1: could get access to the data necessary to calculate the

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Speaker 1: losses in first place, and even more importantly, how they

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Speaker 1: will distribute the damage if these were awarded. So the court,

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Speaker 1: after long deliberation, considered that the methodology suggested by the

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Speaker 1: by the plaintiffs couldn't offer robust results for the consumers

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Speaker 1: to be compensated. I tour, some the plants attorneys are

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Speaker 1: talking about possibly appealing. What court would they be appealing

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Speaker 1: to and how long would an appeal take? So yeah,

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Speaker 1: in fact um legally they have their right to appeal

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Speaker 1: the decision. They will have to appeal in the next

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Speaker 1: two weeks, although the tribunal um might be close in order,

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Speaker 1: so will be any time in the in the next quarter.

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Speaker 1: And and the appeal has to be submitted to the

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Speaker 1: same court that actually took the decision. The appealing to

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Speaker 1: be approved by the Competition Appeal Tribunal. And if so

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Speaker 1: we'll go to the Court of Appeal here in England.

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Speaker 1: And so how close is MasterCard to being off the

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Speaker 1: hook on this issue in Europe? UH? In the consumer

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Speaker 1: the consumer claim that has been dismissed. Almost in highly

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Speaker 1: we could say that this master Card is of the hook.

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Speaker 1: Is very difficult that the plentiffs win this case in

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Speaker 1: the appeal. But master Car is still facing damage claims

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Speaker 1: from retailers for about two point four billion dollars and

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Speaker 1: in these cases, UM, there's still much to say yet.

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Speaker 1: Master Court has had quite a history in in Europe

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Speaker 1: and the UK of of fighting in courts, has it not? Yes? Yes,

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Speaker 1: In fact, in the last two years has been fighting

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Speaker 1: these damage claims in UK with mixing results. They won

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Speaker 1: one of the cases, they lost the other, and interestingly enough,

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Speaker 1: still no real has said or has established whether the

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Speaker 1: anti the swipe frees could be or could cause damage

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Speaker 1: to retailers. All the arguments put for or where leaves

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Speaker 1: some leeway for the companies to to even settle in

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Speaker 1: the future, and we only have about twenty seconds but quickly.

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Speaker 1: This ruling, as I understand, it doesn't preclude individual consumers

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Speaker 1: from from suing. Any reason to think that they'll do that, UM?

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. UM. Even though they had the

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Speaker 1: right to file these complaints in an individual in individual proceedings,

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Speaker 1: the money that this or the damage that these consumers

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Speaker 1: could claim is um, it's not worth uh filing the suits,

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Speaker 1: so probably none of them will will follow or will

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Speaker 1: file new suits in the court. Okay, thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Tor Ortis is a Bloomberg litigation analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence