News

No relief for NAC in ATM access fee lawsuit

May 30, 2017

This week, a D.C. federal court denied a motion by the National ATM Council to enjoin Visa and MasterCard from enforcing ATM fee rules over the companies' alleged violation of federal antitrust law.

According to a report by Law360, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon said NAC failed to prove that independent deployers were suffering irreparable harm under the access fee rules. 

The decision capped a struggle of more than six years by the council to beat back the fees, which NAC contends limit IADs' earning potential. But in his ruling, Judge Leon said that:

Plaintiffs do not marshal any evidence showing that the ATM Access Fee Rules, which were adopted in 1996 and have remained substantially the same ever since, are the cause of the recent decline they describe. If plaintiffs cannot show that the rules they want to enjoin are causing the harm they complain of, then they are not entitled to injunctive relief.

The case is National ATM Council Inc. et al. v. Visa Inc. et al., case number 1:11-cv-01803, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.