Visa secures judgement in claims by retailers

Linklaters and Milbank represented Visa in a major competition case and ruled that the claim issued by retailers Arcadia, Argos, Asda, and B&Q should be dismissed because it was out of time. The retailers, represented by Stewarts Law, were seeking damages for breaches of European and domestic competition law over Visa’s imposition of multilateral interchange fees (MIFs).

The claims date back to 1977 but the claimants argued that Visa had purposely hidden several relevant facts which meant they were still within the time period to bring the claim. Visa argued that all the relevant facts had been publicly disclosed more than six years before the claims were brought, thus making the case out of time. Mr Justice Simon agreed that there was enough information to bring the claim before 2007, hence the six year limitation period had expired before the case was filed. He concluded that the portions of the claim relating to the period before 2007 should be carried through which is worth around GBP 500 million. The claimants intend to seek permission to appeal.

Justice Simon J said, “This is not a case of a ‘secret cartel’ operating over many years without the knowledge of victims and the authorities, and which has been discovered long afterwards. On the contrary, the existence and operation of the Visa four-party card payment system and the multilateral interchange fees were matters of public knowledge, which had been notified to the competition authorities.”