Ex post assessment of European competition policy in the payment sector : the Visa Europe 2010 commitments decision

Abstract

The payment sector has been subject to many European Union (EU) competition law decisions over the past twenty years. The decisions cover a wide range of competition law issues, from antitrust concerns (such as the European Commission’s (EC) 2007 prohibition decisions against the GIE Cartes Bancaires about the so-called MERFA fee and against Visa Europe for having refused to grant a license to Morgan Stanley) to the review of proposed concentrations by the EC (amongst others in 2016 M.7873 Worldline/Equens/Paysquare; in 2018 Case M.9089 – Hellman & Friedman/Concardis Payment Group, in 2019 Case M.9452 – Global Payments/TSYS or in 2020 Worldline/Ingenico and Mastercard/Nets). A particular focus of competition enforcement in the payment sector has concerned interchange fees (IF). Several competition law decisions by the EC and various national competition authorities (NCAs), as well as judgments from the EU courts, have sought to reduce IFs, before subjecting them to caps with the entry into force of the EU Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) on 9 December 2015.