Apple, Visa and Mastercard Antitrust Lawsuit Tossed by Federal Judge
Apple, Visa and Mastercard reportedly won a legal victory in an antitrust lawsuit.
[contact-form-7]The tech giant and the two payment firms convinced a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit accusing them of colluding to stifle competition, Reuters reported Thursday (July 10).
U.S. District Judge David Dugan in Illinois ruled that the merchants who brought the suit did not offer sufficient evidence to back their claims that Apple illegally chose not to launch a payment network to rival that of Mastercard and Visa, according to the report.
Dugan found that the plaintiffs offered only “a slew of circumstantial allegations” but permitted them to amend their suit to bolster their claims, the report said. The three defendants denied any wrongdoing and urged the judge to dismiss the suit.
Apple and Visa did not reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. A spokesperson for Mastercard declined to comment.
In 2014, Apple introduced Apple Pay, a mobile wallet that lets iPhone users store payment card information and make purchases at participating businesses.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, accused Apple of conspiring with Visa and Mastercard to refrain from competing with the two credit card firms. The suit claimed that in exchange, Visa and Mastercard paid Apple a large portion of transaction fees for purchases made on their networks by consumers using Apple Pay.
These payments from Visa and Mastercard to Apple amounted to a “very large and ongoing cash bribe” of hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the suit said.
Apple argued that the complaint failed to show that the company had any plan to enter the payments network market and compete with Visa or Mastercard.
In his ruling, Dugan said the plaintiffs’ claims “completely ignore the difficulties, costs and time, risks, and potential for failure associated with such an endeavor,” per the Reuters report.
The decision came as mobile wallets are emerging as a force in how consumers conduct in-store transactions worldwide,” PYMNTS wrote last month.
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Pocket Revolution: How Mobile Wallets Are Changing Payments Worldwide” found that mobile wallets now account for 21% of all in-store transactions, a 10.9% increase since 2022.
The post Apple, Visa and Mastercard Antitrust Lawsuit Tossed by Federal Judge appeared first on PYMNTS.com.