Mastercard settles case brought by retailers

Anthony Pennyworth

The spokeswoman said US District Court Judge John Gleeson announced the settlement and imposed a gag order, barring the parties from making public the specifics of the case, she said.

Officials of Visa could not immediately be reached for comment about the status of the portion of the case against that company.

The lawsuit alleged that the two companies improperly exploited their market dominance to force retailers to use an inefficient debit system that they created to thwart competition from smaller debit companies.

The offline debit transactions offered by the defendant companies cost up to 16 times more than competing networks, the lawsuit alleged. Visa and Mastercard charged up to $1.49 for a $100 transaction compared with nine cents for online debit transactions through rival regional networks.