Prohibited agreements in the case of debit card fees?: Star US lawyer’s home field will … – Handelsblatt

accusation

The banks should have been banned way over a uniform charge when you Pay with debit cards, agreed to.

(photo: Reuters)

With the Volkswagen group, have the lawyers for the US law firm home field already a large German counterparties. They claim damages in the billions for the customer, the cheated, the car builders in the exhaust gas affair. Now the law firm is also apparently the German banking houses. According to information from the “Bild am Sonntag” prepares home field billion lawsuits against all the big money houses. Savings banks, public banks and private institutions such as Deutsche Bank were affected, according to the report. The charge: prohibited cartel agreements between banks for years have to excessive charges when you Pay with debit cards.

A representative of the law firm in Germany said, according to the newspaper report, home field to represent “a number of well-known clients”. Large oil companies and well-known trading companies. The German banking industry provides for such a procedure is not a basis.

The banks had announced in April 2014, the up to then usual, single merchant fees for electronic payments with debit cards (formerly EC-card). Until then, retailers in Germany are paid for each payment transaction with the Giro or debit card from the Bank associations fixed fee to the Bank that had issued the card. It is 0.3 of a percentage of the respective revenue amounted to, but at least 8 cents. Sales at gas stations, a reduced rate was applied. The cartel office had criticized this practice as a restriction of competition. Since the dealer can negotiate the fees, were the costs according to the Federal cartel office by up to 40 percent.

“for years, to be agreed with individual charges in the EC Cash System with trading,” said the Federal Association of German people’s banks and Raiffeisen banks as a representative of the industry on Sunday. “The previous single method was based on a statutory exemption and was coordinated with the German Federal cartel office. A cartel infringement was not, at any time, and has also been by the Federal cartel office found."

the name of the client, the care home field, called the firm on demand on Sunday. With the action you want to call to the newspaper, now from your point of view at the time, excessive fees. The lawsuits are soon to be in the Frankfurt district court filed.