By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Justice sued Visa for alleged antitrust violations on Tuesday, accusing one of the world’s largest payment networks of suppressing competition by threatening merchants with high fees and paying off potential rivals.
Visa processes more than 60% of debit transactions in the U.S., bringing it $7 billion each year in fees collected when transactions are routed over its network, the Justice Department said. The company protects that dominance through agreements with card issuers, merchants, and competitors, prosecutors allege.
The bid to tackle the fees, sometimes known as swipe fees or interchange fees, is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to combat rising consumer prices, a major issue in the Nov. 5 presidential election between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York)