Supreme Court rejects Visa, Mastercard appeal in ATM lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from Visa and Mastercard in a class action lawsuit case from ATM operators, who first sued Visa, Mastercard and several banks in 2011 from allegedly violating U.S. antitrust laws, according to a report by Reuters.

A group of consumers and operators of nonbank ATMs claimed in the lawsuit that ATM access fees made them pay higher fees. The lawsuit includes two consumer groups and about 3,400 independent ATM operators, who are seeking damages of more than $9 billion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the credit card companies in 2023, while Visa and Mastercard argued that the court did not conduct a "rigorous analysis." In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the companies claimed that allowing these cases to go forward as class actions would lead to "rampant confusion" regarding legal standards.

Attorneys for the lawsuit said that they had, "fully considered defendants' criticism of the district court's evaluation of the evidence and found it utterly unmeritorious."