Swiss Federal court rejects Visa's demand for fee increase

The Federal Administrative Court in St Gallen rejected a precautionary measure requested by the credit card provider Visa on Wednesday. The credit card provider had demanded that the increase in interchange fees introduced on July 1, 2023 should also be applied during the course of the investigation into the company being undertaken by the competition commission (COMCO). At the end of June last year, the COMCO opened an investigation into Visa due to an increase in interchange fees for credit and debit card transactions in Switzerland. Visa then sought clarification from COMCO, which considered the increase desired by the company to be inappropriate. In particular, the company asked the supervisory authority for permission to maintain the fee increase until the investigation was concluded, a request that was promptly rejected by COMCO, which argued that such a measure would be contrary to the anti-cartel law. The credit card provider therefore appealed against this decision to the ...