Mastercard Welcomes UK Court Ruling To Block GBP 14 Bln Class Action Suit

(RTTNews) - Mastercard Inc. (MA) welcomed a decision by a U.K. court to block a 14 billion pound class action suit against the company that alleged it had overcharged about 46 million Britons over a 16-year period.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled that the case could not proceed through a collective - or class - action.

The tribunal found that even if a loss had been suffered, and could be estimated across the whole class, there was no way any individual could receive compensation equal to the loss that he or she had actually suffered. The case was filed in September 2016, and followed a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling against the level of so-called interchange fees - the amounts that retailers have to pay on debit and credit cards.

It related to the fees charged by Mastercard between 1992 and 2008.

"We welcome the Competition Appeal Tribunal's judgment refusing certification for the proposed collective action. As set out in Mastercard's arguments to date, we believe that the claims were completely unsuitable to be brought under the collective actions regime," the company said.