UK Businesses Unleash £700 Million Lawsuit Against Visa and Mastercard Over 'Excessive' EEA Fees

A significant collective proceedings claim, valued at over £700 million, has been lodged against payment giants Visa and Mastercard at the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). The claim alleges that the two card networks unlawfully exploited the removal of EU interchange fee caps following Brexit, imposing excessive inter-regional fees on UK businesses that process online payments from customers within the European Economic Area (EEA).

The action is spearheaded by Ann Pope, a former Senior Director for Antitrust at the Competition and Markets Authority, operating through Ann Pope Collective Proceedings Limited and represented by Geradin Partners, a prominent pan-European competition law firm. The proposed class encompasses approximately 126,000 UK businesses that have accepted remote payments from EEA-issued cards at any point since October 2020. Notably, participation in this action is on an opt-out basis, meaning eligible businesses are automatically included unless they choose to withdraw.

The core of the claim revolves around the substantial increase in inter-regional interchange fees. Before the conclusion of the Brexit transition period, these fees were subject to EU caps. Once these caps ceased to apply to UK businesses, investigations by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) revealed that Visa escalated its UK-EEA online transaction fees five-fold in October 2021, jumping from 0.2% to 1.15% for consumer debit cards and from 0.3% to 1.5% for consumer credit cards. Mastercard followed suit with equivalent increases in April 2022.

The claim contends that these fee hikes were not a legitimate commercial response to altered market conditions. Despite Brexit, the UK maintained its participation in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), implying that the fundamental cost structure for processing EEA-issued card transactions remained materially unchanged. The PSR itself has concluded that Visa and Mastercard faced no effective competitive constraints on the acquiring side of their networks when determining these fees. The regulator has since proposed a price cap, which is currently under active consideration but has yet to be implemented.

Geradin Partners’ partner, David Gallagher, highlighted that the CAT had previously ruled that inter-regional interchange fee arrangements restrict competition in an unrelated case. Gallagher asserted, “Visa and Mastercard have great power over the payments that businesses rely on every day. Our claims seek redress for UK businesses who, we say, have suffered harm as a result of Visa and Mastercard’s conduct.”

The substantial potential liability underscores the economic importance of UK-EU trade. Figures from 2025 cited in the claim indicate UK exports to the EU at £384 billion, representing 41% of all UK exports. For businesses selling goods or services to European consumers online, the acceptance of EEA-issued cards is practically unavoidable, given that the PSR found Visa and Mastercard collectively handle nine out of ten online transactions at UK businesses where the customer holds an EEA card.

This legal action unfolds amidst an active period for interchange regulation in the UK. The PSR’s ongoing review of cross-border interchange, coupled with the CAT’s prior findings on inter-regional fees, provides a relatively firm regulatory foundation for the claim compared to many other collective proceedings. While the £700 million-plus figure represents estimated accumulated overcharges across a broad class over several years, any final compensation would depend on the CAT’s assessment of the counterfactual fee level and the specific damages attributable to individual class members.

The Pope claim is particularly noteworthy within a broader European context of merchant interchange claims, as it was filed after a domestic regulator, rather than the European Commission, explicitly identified the post-Brexit fee increases as problematic. This sequence may strengthen the claim's prospects during the crucial certification stage, although Visa and Mastercard are anticipated to vigorously contest both liability and the proposed class definition. Affected UK businesses interested in registering their interest can do so at eeacardclaim.co.uk.