Mastercard wins Brexit limitation appeal in retailer interchange fee litigation

Client(s) MasterCard International Inc.

Jones Day represented Mastercard International Inc. in its successful defence of an appeal in relation to limitation issues in the retailer interchange fee litigation in the United Kingdom. In the appeal, thousands of merchants sought to overturn the Competition Appeal Tribunal's judgment which held that the Court of Justice of the European Union's ("CJEU") judgment in Case C-267/20 Volvo and DAF Trucks and Case C-605/21 Heureka did not mean that limitation had not begun to run on the merchants' claims. They also asserted that the English courts were effectively bound to follow Volvo and Heureka, despite the fact that they were CJEU decisions that post-dated Brexit. The Court of Appeal, in considering pre-Brexit EU case law as well as complex post-Brexit case law and legislation, unanimously dismissed the appeal in Mastercard's favour.

Umbrella Interchange Fee Claimants v Umbrella Interchange Fee Defendants [2024] EWCA Civ 1559