The EU Court of Justice dismisses the final appeal in a case regarding inter-bank card fees (MasterCard)

On 11 September 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) dismissed [1] MasterCard’s final appeal against an antitrust infringement decision of 2007. This judgment finally put an end to a seven-year long legal battle over inter-bank card fees and may have a profound impact on banks, merchants and, ultimately, consumers. Interchange fees are fees paid by a merchant’s bank (the “acquiring bank”) to the cardholder’s bank (the “issuing bank”) for card-based payment transactions. Even though the fees can be agreed bilaterally between individual banks, it is common that interchange fees are collectively set by the banks through a payment card scheme or organisation. These are the so-called Multilateral Interchange Fees (“MIFs”). Interchange fees paid to the issuing bank are