The Banks may have acted illegally when they jointly set the fees for transactions made with Visa and MasterCard payment cards. The Court of Appeal took the stance of UOKiK and the case will be reviewed

The judgement of the Court of Appeal concerns the unprecedented decision of December 2006, where the Office discovered that for 13 years, 20 banks had jointly set fees for transactions made with Visa and Mastercard payment cards – the so-called “interchange fee”. A fine of PLN 164 million was imposed on the colluding undertakings.

Banks receive commission from sellers from each non-cash transaction. In Poland, the commission accounts for 1-2% on average. The fee sets a minimum, non-negotiable price level for the processing of card payments and all shops offering non-cash payments must incur the fee. In the decision of 2006, the President of the Office stated that 20 banks had concluded an illegal agreement whereby they would charge a fee for each non-cash, card payment transaction. If no agreement had been made, the commission received from drawee banks for settling transactions would be much lower, and the banks would lose fat transaction profits whenever Visa and MasterCard were used.

Upon the issuance of this decision, all the banks lodged an appeal to the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection. Unfortunately, the court did not uphold the Office’s decision, and in November 2008 repealed the decision arguing that the Office failed to determine the market where the breach of the law may have occured.

The Office rejected the decision of the Court and lodged an appeal to the Court of Appeal. On 22nd April 2010, sharing the views expressed by the Office, the Court of Appeal repealed the decision of the Court of First Instance and submitted it for review. The Court determines the President of UOKiK defined the relevant market in a correct way and agreed with the EC’s stance (included in decisions on cross-border interchange fees for Visa and Mastercard payments) cited by the President of UOKiK. The Court examined the settlements between the payment card transaction participants, and states that the prices for processing transactions are determined by agreements made by the banks rather than free competition.

The judgement means that the CCCP will need to review its decision, taking into account the arguments of the Court of Appeal.

Additional information the media:
Małgorzata Cieloch, Spokesperson for UOKiK
Department of International Relations and Communication
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw, Poland
Phone: (+48 22) 827 28 92, 55 60 106, 55 60 430
faks (+48 22) 826 11 86
E-mail: malgorzata.cieloch@uokik.gov.pl