The lawsuit, filed September 30, 2026, in the Southern District of New York (case 1:26‑cv‑06087), names Visa Inc., Mastercard Incorporated and several large U.S. banks as defendants. According to the complaint, the defendants have worked together for decades to set uniform interchange‑fee schedules that merchants must pay on each Visa or Mastercard transaction. The suit contends that these fees are effectively non‑negotiable and constitute a “deadweight toll on virtually every credit card purchase in America,” amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars in “monopoly rents.”\n\nThe complaint further alleges that the defendants have maintained a “web of anticompetitive rules” that force merchants accepting any Visa or Mastercard card to accept all such cards, regardless of cost, thereby removing any incentive for issuing banks to compete by lowering fees. The lawsuit says the restraints also prevent merchants from steering customers to lower‑cost payment options—for example, by imposing a surcharge based on the card used. As a result, the suit argues, the financial giants have been able to raise fees each year “without consequence.”\n\nThe complaint cites the defendants’ own data, stating that merchants now pay more than $100 billion annually in fees to accept Visa and Mastercard cards. It notes that Visa and Mastercard have also exploited the allegedly anticompetitive market handcuffs to inflate their own network fees—comprised of per‑transaction fees and fixed fees—charged to merchants as a cost of accepting the companies’ credit cards, adding an additional “supracompetitive tax” on each credit card transaction.\n\nA prior class‑action settlement approved in December 2019 provided upward of $5 billion in monetary relief to merchants, but only for transactions occurring before January 24, 2019. Although a separate equitable‑relief settlement seeking injunctive relief has been preliminarily approved, the benefits apply only prospectively and merchants receive no compensation for fees paid after January 25, 2019.\n\nAccording to the filing, the interchange‑fee class action looks to represent all individuals, businesses and other entities that have accepted Visa‑branded and/or Mastercard‑branded credit cards in the United States from January 25, 2019 until the alleged anticompetitive effects of the defendants’ conduct cease. The suit states that merchants that accepted Visa and Mastercard credit cards after January 2019 have “borne the full brunt of Defendants’ continuing anticompetitive conduct.”\n\nThe lawsuit requests monetary relief, injunctive relief to dismantle the alleged restraints, and any other relief the court deems appropriate.
