Merchant Claimants Prevail in CAT’s Judgment on Multilateral Interchange Fees

UK Competition Appeal Tribunal finds Multilateral Interchange Fees Infringed Competition Act Preferring Testimony of Compass Lexecon Expert Neil Dryden

The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has found that Mastercard’s and Visa’s Multilateral Interchange Fees (MIFs) restricted competition in relation to consumer and commercial card transactions, including after the introduction of the Interchange Fee Regulation.

Compass Lexecon was retained by a large number of merchants to provide expert testimony regarding the competitive effects of MIFs. The findings in relation to the interplay with regulation, and in relation to consumer inter-regional and commercial card MIFs, broke new ground.

Neil Dryden served as the key economic expert for the merchant claimants. The CAT reached conclusions largely consistent with his evidence and overall attached “greater weight” to the merchant claimants’ expert evidence than to the card schemes’ expert evidence.

Neil was supported by a Compass Lexecon team led by Stefano Trento, Thomas Bowman and Gwilhem Charbonnier that included Alice Zhu, Daryl Tiong, Duygu Tutluoglu, Istvan Barati, Kitti Perger, Kuljeetsinh Nimbalkar, Peter Bönisch, Sander Heinsalu, Sandy Perkins, Thomas Coibion, and Victoria Haigney.

Compass Lexecon worked closely with a legal team at Stephenson Harwood LLP led by Genevieve Quierin that included Donna Newman, Chris Pettett and Marcus Watkinson; and a team at Scott & Scott LLP led by Cian Mansfield that included Alice Bernstein. The merchant claimants’ barristers in this matter were led by Kieron Beal KC of Blackstone Chambers, supported by Philip Woolfe KC and Antonia Fitzpatrick from Monckton Chambers, and Oliver Jackson of 11KBW.