DOJ files antitrust suit against Visa over debit network practices

In a filing made in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division alleged Visa has “monopolized debit transactions; penalized industry participants that seek to use alternative debit networks; and coopted innovators, technology companies, and financial institutions to forestall or snuff out threats to Visa’s debit network dominance.” In the lawsuit, the DOJ requests that the Court adjudge and decree that Visa has acted unlawfully to monopolize, or, in the alternative, attempt to monopolize, the market for general purpose card-not-present debit network services in the United States as well as the market for general purpose debit network services in the United States and “enter such relief as needed to cure the anticompetitive harm from all of Visa’s unlawful actions” as well as enjoin Visa from “continuing to engage in the anticompetitive practices described herein and from engaging in any other practices with the same purpose or effect as the challenged practices.”