Word: mastercards
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...does. And so far as the Department of Justice is concerned, maybe a lot better. Its antitrust division spent the summer trying a complex--some argue convoluted--case against Visa USA and MasterCard International in the U.S. Southern District of New York, in Manhattan. The two-year-old suit alleges that the associations, which together control more than 75% of the credit-card market, have conspired to keep Americans frozen in a sort of mid-'80s dark age of consumer-payment mechanisms...
Justice asserts that the big brands' coziness limits competition and that together they unfairly keep other teams (read American Express and Discover) off the playing field. Since 1976--after a Justice Department review nudged the brands toward so-called duality--banks have been able to issue both Visa and MasterCard. The brands are actually joint ventures owned by the banks that issue cards. Trouble is, the government says, the same powerful banks control both associations. The biggest banks have been able to sit on one brand's board of directors and hold great sway in the other. That...
...phalanx of the nation's largest retailers--Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and the Limited among them--are suing Visa and MasterCard, saying they too were overcharged. The merchants will argue before a federal judge in Brooklyn that they are forced to accept and pay an artificially high fee on debit-card sales. They hope to wring $8.1 billion from the defendants in this class action--a number that would triple, if they win, under federal antitrust...
...even used Visa's archrival, American Express, for help. Justice opened its current investigation in 1993; by 1996, Amex had enlisted, arguing that the restrictive by-laws should go. In other countries, the company points out, it is free to issue credit cards through banks. As MasterCard general counsel Noah Hanft says of Justice's fix, however, "it's a remedy that seems catered to suit the needs of Amex." Amex is not an official party to the suit, though its lawyers attend and--an envious Visa official points out--bring seat cushions for the courtroom's wooden pews...
...this week. The Federal Election Commission ruled that Buchanan is entitled to the Reform Party's $12.6 million in matching funds, which makes him one of the nation's larger welfare mothers. And a federal judge ruled that Nader may continue running a TV commercial that parodies those of MasterCard. Given the continuing controversies over Gore's fund raising and Bush's commercials, it is obvious which are the two serious candidates...