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Apple, Visa, and Mastercard are all facing a class-action lawsuit over the Apple Card.
A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses the companies of conspiring to thwart competition for point-of-sale companies, ultimately requiring merchants to spend artificially higher feeds on credit and debit transactions, Reuters reports.
In the complaint, filed in federal court on Thursday, drink retailer Mirage Wine & Spirits says Apple conspired with the credit card companies to not compete with them in exchange for receiving a portion of transaction fees for purchases made using their cards tied to Apple’s mobile wallet.
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The suit calls the payments a “very large and ongoing cash bribe” that equates to hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Mirage says its lawsuit is on behalf of “all merchants in the United States that accepted Apple Pay as a method of payment at the physical point-of-sale” and alleges that due to the arrangement, Visa and Mastercard had no incentive to launch their digital wallet or take part in any third-party wallet apps, which the retailer believes led to inflated merchant fees.
In March, a US appeals court upheld a class-action lawsuit by 12 million retailers against Visa and Mastercard claiming the two companies unlawfully fixed the fees for credit and debit cards. That suit included gas and oil companies that claimed they had been injured after choosing to accept credit card purchases.