Wal-Mart Files Federal Lawsuit Against Visa For “Swipe Fees”

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Wal-Mart Stores has sued Visa over its “swipe fees”, saying the credit card company conspired with banks to fix processing fee prices retailers are charged with.

The largest retailer in the world has accused Visa for charging extremely high card swipe fees and has said the price fixing Visa id cost the company nearly $5 billion in damages. Although it’s damages are just $5 billion, the company is reportedly seeking $15 billion in damages because it’s a federal antitrust case.

In July 2012, major banks along with MasterCard and Visa came up with a provisional settlement with a multitude of retailers. The credit companies agreed to pay $7.25 billion and reduce the fees stores were charged. A federal charge approved the settlement.

Large and small retailers have criticized this settlement, saying it failed to adequately compensate them for damages the credit card companies did. Several well-known retailers including Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart chose to opt-out from the settlement.

Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, filed its suit in an Arkansas federal court Thursday. The battle has been ongoing for eight years already and, with the filed lawsuit, will carry on even longer.

A spokesman with Visa said the company will not comment on the lawsuit.

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Posted by News on Mar 30 2014. Filed under Business, Featured, New. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.