Competition Appeal Tribunal orders OFT to pay Visa and MasterCard's costs
The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has today ordered the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to pay Visa's costs of intervening in MasterCard's recent appeal against the OFT. The CAT also ordered the OFT to pay some of MasterCard's costs.
In September 2005, the OFT found that MasterCard's interchange fees infringed European and UK competition law. Interchange fees are the payments made between banks on purchases made using Visa and MasterCard cards.
Following MasterCard's appeal, and Visa's intervention, the OFT withdrew its decision. The CAT said: "The nub of the matter, in our view, is that, for whatever reason, the OFT decided that the position taken in its decision was in certain important respects not one that it was able or willing to defend before the CAT.
Frontier (London) advises Visa Europe.
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