On October 7, 1998 the Department of Justice announced it's intent to sue Visa and MasterCard on antitrust grounds. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said, "The Justice Department's antitrust division found persuasive and systematic evidence of the harm done to competition in the credit card market. Competitive initiatives that could benefit consumers have been abandoned, delayed or suppressed. Consumer choice has been reduced, and competition among card networks has been substantially restrained"(American Express Company, 2000, 1).
The suit is being issued by the DOJ, but clearly being driven by American Express and Discover respectively. These companies, the two remaining credit card brands that make up the main players in the industry, have much to gain in a judgement against Visa and MasterCard. To understand the issues, and stakes a basic understanding of the current industry structure is necessary.
Visa and MasterCard are non-stock, not for profit membership corporations owned by thousands of diverse financial institutions (i.e.- banks, credit unions etc.). The Visa association was formed by a group of American banks in the late 1960's to assist its members in issuing general-purpose payment cards and signing merchants to accept those cards (Allen, 2000, 2). Visa and MasterCard are considered to be an "open" or joint venture relationship with each other and their association members. In essence, this means any financial institution may join the Visa and MasterCard associations assuming they can meet certain capital adequacy requirements, and comply with certain association rules. In return, Visa and MasterCard provide essential functions to the member banks. They license their members to issue Visa a ...