tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-678695784698978970.post3770978509086164960..comments2024-03-24T07:05:18.668-04:00Comments on Commercial Law: Merchants Lobbying Congress for Interchange Fee LimitsJim Chenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13981455878475838042noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-678695784698978970.post-9367232934660105122009-05-22T18:44:22.638-04:002009-05-22T18:44:22.638-04:00In their class action against Visa, MasterCard, an...In their class action against Visa, MasterCard, and a number of large issuing banks, the merchants argue that denying them the right to surcharge credit card transactions is an unlawful restraint of trade. Professor Adam Levitin at Georgetown has written extensively on this topic and agrees that no surcharge rules are anticompetitive. I'm not so sure. There are some powerful economic arguments to the contrary that I've addressed in a prior blog, http://ucclaw.blogspot.com/2008/06/butchering-credit-cards.html, as well as in a response to Prof. Levitin on UCLA's Discourse that is hopefully available here: http://www.uclalawreview.org/discourse/index.aspx?view=56/1/1-1.Steven Semerarohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13833720671562538088noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-678695784698978970.post-22518478016209211672009-05-09T07:44:00.000-04:002009-05-09T07:44:00.000-04:00What seems unbalanced by this practice is that Vis...What seems unbalanced by this practice is that Visa and Mastercard will not allow individual merchants to charge the fee back to the consumer directly. They will allow a different "cash price" than "credit price," but merchants cannot specifically associate an additional fee to a credit card transaction.Marc Roarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03870130814598672360noreply@blogger.com