Card Companies Lose Bid To Toss Merchant Class Action

A class action antitrust lawsuit targeting banks and the major credit card networks, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express, has survived a motion to dismiss. The case, brought in the Northern District of California by a Miami-area liquor store and a small Florida grocery chain, alleges the defendant companies conspired to rollout the new EMV chip technology and impose liability on merchants in “lockstop” and under draconian terms, far more severe than those that were in effect during the rollout in Europe, Latin America, the Asia Pacific region and in Canada. Also a defendant is EMVCo LLC, the company that develops and manages the technical standards for the new technology, and which is co-owned by several major card companies. The two plaintiffs claim that since the rollout and liability transfer, they have been hit with more than $25,000 in chargebacks for fraudulent transactions.