Mastercard misuse of market power trial pushed to 2026
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The news: Mastercard's legal battle over allegations it misused its market power relating to card payments is set to go to trial on 13 April, 2026, after evidence delays disrupted plans for a trial this year. The case is the first of its kind since the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) brought proceedings against Tasmanian Ports in 2019.
The context: The regulator first announced its lawsuit against Mastercard in 2022. The ACCC alleged at the time that Mastercard had engaged in anticompetitive conduct in response to a 2017 Reserve Bank of Australia least cost routing initiative designed to boost competition in debit card acceptance services.
The goal was to allow businesses to choose the lowest cost network to process transactions. Businesses could choose between Mastercard, Visa and eftpos — with eftpos often the cheapest option.
But Mastercard allegedly entered into agreements with more than 20 major retailers, from supermarkets to fast food chains and clothing retailers, offering discounted rates for Mastercard credit card transactions if businesses agreed to process all or most of their Mastercard-eftpos debit transactions through the Mastercard network.
ACCC v Mastercard is only the second case to be brought under an updated misuse of market power legal test.
An initial 2024 trial was pushed back in 2023 to March this year, due to evidence delays, which are still plaguing the case.
Mastercard has said it wouldn't be able to respond to current document requests before 2 May, towards the end of the planned trial for this year.
A further case management hearing is expected to take place in June.
What they said: Appearing before Federal Court of Australia Judge Michael Wigney in Sydney on Monday, barrister James Arnott said the regulator reluctantly accepted the trial couldn't proceed as planned.
Arnott said the "sole reason" for the delay is Mastercard's failure to produce documents and that the "Australian taxpayer should not subsidise the incompetence of a multinational company".
Appearing on behalf of Mastercard, Conor Bannan told the court that the company apologised and "would not accept some of the pejorative language used to describe what has occurred".
"What has occurred is there’s been a regrettable IT problem [and] at all times Mastercard has acted diligently to comply with its discovery obligations", Bannan said.
