Groupement des Cartes Bancaires

On July 7, 2011, following a two-year investigation and regulatory proceedings, Autorité de la Concurrence, the French NCA, issued a decision regarding the level of card and ATM interchange fees applied by Groupement des Cartes Bancaires (GCB) for card payment and cash withdrawal in France. The Compass Lexecon team, led by David Sevy and involving Laure Schulz and Patricia Perennes from the Paris office, instructed by GCB and its legal advisors, Alain Georges and others at Latham & Watkins LLP, as well as Luc Gyselen from Arnold & Porter LLP, submitted three main economic documents on cost-based evaluations of the interchange fees and a tourist test approach, the latter in response to data on the relative costs of cash and card payment submitted by plaintiffs. The French NCA accepted a cap on card interchange fees that was consistent with the findings of our tourist test approach. The cap on ATM withdrawal interchange fee was set in reference to cost levels identified in our study.