Mastercard's misuse of market power trial pushed to 2025
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The news: The ACCC's allegations against Mastercard over misuse of market power relating to card payments is set to go to trial on 24 March, 2025, after evidence delays disrupted plans for a trial next year. The case is the first of its kind since the ACCC brought proceedings against Tasmanian Ports in 2019.
The context: The regulator has alleged that Mastercard 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.
Legal context: ACCC v Mastercard is only the second case to be brought under an updated misuse of market power legal test.
