Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over 'anticompetitive' fees

Visa, Mastercard, major banks facing new litigation over ‘anticompetitive’ fees

Visa、Mastercard 及多家大型银行因“反竞争”费用面临新诉讼

Filed: September 30, 2026 ◆§ 1:26-cv-06087. A class action lawsuit alleges Visa, Mastercard and some of America’s largest banks have conspired to artificially inflate merchants’ credit card transaction fees.

立案日期：2026年9月30日 ◆案号：1:26-cv-06087。一项集体诉讼指控 Visa、Mastercard 及美国部分大型银行合谋人为抬高商户的信用卡交易手续费。

Citibank, N.A. Wells Fargo & Company Bank of America, NA Capital One Bank USA, N.A. Chase Bank USA N.A. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Bank of America Corporation Citigroup Inc. Capital One Financial Corporation Visa Inc. Visa U.S.A. Inc. Visa International Service Association Mastercard Incorporated Mastercard International Incorporated Paymentech, LLC. Sherman Antitrust Act.

花旗银行、富国银行、美国银行、第一资本银行、大通银行、摩根大通、花旗集团、第一资本金融公司、Visa公司、Visa美国公司、Visa国际服务协会、万事达卡公司、万事达卡国际公司、Paymentech, LLC。《谢尔曼反托拉斯法》。

A San Diego pizzeria alleges in a proposed class action lawsuit that Visa, Mastercard and several of the nation’s largest banks have maintained a conspiracy to artificially inflate the fees merchants pay on credit card transactions, despite a more than $5 billion class action settlement in recent years over the same allegedly anticompetitive market restraints.

圣地亚哥一家披萨店在一项拟议的集体诉讼中指控，尽管近年来就同样的所谓反竞争市场限制达成了超过50亿美元的集体诉讼和解，但 Visa、Mastercard 及美国多家大型银行仍维持着合谋，人为抬高商户在信用卡交易中支付的费用。

The 134-page lawsuit contends that the effectively non-negotiable credit card transaction fees imposed by the defendants amount to “a deadweight toll on virtually every credit card purchase in America,” totaling hundreds of billions in “monopoly rents” at rates that “no competitive market would produce.”

这份长达134页的诉状主张，被告征收的实际上不可协商的信用卡交易费相当于“对美国几乎每一笔信用卡消费征收的无谓税收”，总额达数千亿美元的“垄断租金”，其费率是“任何竞争性市场都不会产生的”。

According to the complaint, Visa and Mastercard have worked with the bank defendants—Bank of America, Capital One, Chase Bank, Citibank and Wells Fargo—for decades to set uniform schedules of interchange fees, i.e., the effectively non-negotiable charges merchants must pay to credit card-issuing banks on each transaction.

根据起诉书，Visa 和 Mastercard 数十年来一直与作为被告的银行（美国银行、第一资本、大通银行、花旗银行和富国银行）合作，制定统一的交换费标准，即商户在每笔交易中必须向信用卡发卡行支付的、实际上不可协商的费用。

The case charges that the defendants, to maintain the high interchange fees and “ensure merchants cannot escape them,” have implemented a “web of anticompetitive rules,” or restraints, that on the whole have disabled any market forces that could rein in or otherwise discipline the credit card transaction costs imposed on merchants.

该案指控，为了维持高额交换费并“确保商户无法逃避”，被告实施了一套“反竞争规则网”或限制措施，从整体上禁锢了任何能够抑制或约束商户所承担信用卡交易成本的市场力量。

Broadly, the interlocking restraints set and maintained by the defendants have forced merchants that accept any Visa and Mastercard credit card to accept all such cards, regardless of cost, thereby eliminating any incentive for issuing banks to compete by lowering their fees, the suit says.

诉讼称，从广义上讲，被告设定并维持的相互关联的限制措施迫使接受任何 Visa 和 Mastercard 信用卡的商户必须接受所有此类卡片，而不论成本如何，从而消除了发卡行通过降低费用进行竞争的任何动力。

The lawsuit claims the challenged restraints have also prevented merchants from being able to steer customers to lower-cost payment options—for instance, by surcharging based on a customer’s use of a particular card. These and other restraints have prevented competition among issuing banks and other credit card networks, allowing the financial giants to raise their fees every year “without consequence,” the case alleges.

诉讼声称，这些受质疑的限制措施还阻碍了商户引导客户使用成本更低支付方式的能力——例如，通过对客户使用特定卡片收取附加费。该案指控，这些及其他限制措施阻碍了发卡行与其他信用卡网络之间的竞争，使这些金融巨头能够每年“毫无后果地”提高费用。

“The scale of this ongoing scheme is staggering: merchants now pay over $100 billion annually in fees to accept Visa and Mastercard credit cards, enriching Defendants at merchants’ expense,” the class action lawsuit states.

集体诉讼指出：“这一持续计划的规模令人震惊：商户目前每年支付超过1000亿美元的费用来接受 Visa 和 Mastercard 信用卡，这以牺牲商户的利益为代价使被告获利。”

The filing claims Visa and Mastercard have also exploited the allegedly anticompetitive market handcuffs to artificially inflate their own network fees—comprised of per-transaction fees and fixed fees—charged to merchants as a cost of accepting the companies’ credit cards, adding “an additional supracompetitive tax on each credit card transaction.”

诉状称，Visa 和 Mastercard 还利用这些所谓的反竞争市场枷锁，人为抬高了向商户收取的自身网络费用（包括每笔交易费和固定费用），作为接受其信用卡的一项成本，从而在“每笔信用卡交易上额外增加了一项超竞争税”。

The suit states that in December 2019, the court approved a class action settlement in years-old multidistrict litigation that provided upward of $5 billion in monetary relief to merchants, but only for a “class period” ending on January 24, 2019.

诉讼指出，2019年12月，法院批准了一项针对多年多地区诉讼的集体诉讼和解方案，向商户提供了超过50亿美元的货币补偿，但该方案仅涵盖截至2019年1月24日的“集体诉讼期”。

Although a separate “equitable relief” class action settlement seeking injunctive relief has been preliminarily approved, the benefits will apply only prospectively and merchants will not receive “a single dollar in compensation … for the fees they have paid since January 25, 2019.”

尽管另一项寻求禁令救济的“衡平法救济”集体诉讼和解方案已获初步批准，但其利益仅适用于未来，商户无法获得“自2019年1月25日以来所支付费用的哪怕一美元补偿”。

According to the complaint, while some merchants obtained relief for pre-2019 transactions and some may benefit from rule changes in the future, merchants that accepted Visa and Mastercard credit cards after January 2019 have “borne the full brunt of Defendants’ continuing anticompetitive conduct.”

根据起诉书，虽然一些商户获得了2019年前交易的救济，且部分商户可能从未来的规则变更中受益，但2019年1月后接受 Visa 和 Mastercard 信用卡的商户却“完全承受了被告持续反竞争行为的冲击”。

“This settlement structure leaves millions of American merchants without any remedy for their ongoing injuries,” the lawsuit attests.

诉讼断言：“这种和解结构使得数百万美国商户对其持续遭受的损害没有任何补救措施。”

The interchange fees class action lawsuit looks to represent all individuals, businesses and other entities that have accepted Visa-branded and/or Mastercard-branded credit cards in the United States from January 25, 2019 until the alleged “anticompetitive effects” of the defendants’ conduct cease.

该交换费集体诉讼旨在代表所有在2019年1月25日至被告行为的所谓“反竞争影响”停止期间，在美国接受 Visa 品牌和/或 Mastercard 品牌信用卡的个人、企业及其他实体。