Photo: consumerist.com
Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, wrote in the majority opinion released yesterday, “two-sided platforms, differ from traditional markets in important ways. Since card companies deal with both merchants and consumers.” He continued “people challenging actions as anticompetitive must take account of the effect on both sets of market participants.” The majority did not see the restraint in trade by American Express requiring merchants to only offer their card, and not tell customers that Visa and Mastercard had cheaper swipe fees.
The majority was by only one vote 5-4, with Justice Stephen J. Breyer reading his minority opinion summary, an unusual step, when he said, “I particularly fear the interpretive impact of the majority’s discussion of what it calls ‘two-sided platforms,’ in an era when that term might be thought to apply to many internet-related goods and services that are becoming ever more important.”
The bottom line is this: American Express can gag its merchants legally from telling their customers that American Express fees are higher than other cards and they will have to raise prices as a result. Plus, the implication is that other cards are not available for customers to pay for their purchases.
American Express has a huge market share in credit card networks:
Source: valuepenguin.com – 2017
Yes, that’s right Amex did .695 trillion dollars in transactions in 2016! While Visa does have a larger share, American Express is essentially gaging its merchants about the costs of transactions and restraining trade.
Next Steps:
We are frustrated and disappointed that SCOTUS has sided with a Corporate Nation State, American Express, to support continuing to build their financial empire at the cost of retailers optimally running their businesses. Think of retailer’s position – caught in an Amazon competitive whirl wind, Internet global access to products and constantly trying to gain the attention of shoppers to come into their store.
The American Express ‘steering clause’ is clearly a restraint of trade, we need court decisions focused on creating a level playing field for all companies to do business. Congress needs to pass a law making it clear that these ‘two sided’ platforms are just another form of distribution so a product or services provider cannot restrain the distributor from exercising his business rights and doing what is right for their customer.