Breaking News: Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple for Alleged Apple Pay ‘Bribe’ with Visa and Mastercard!
Apple, Visa, and Mastercard have been hit with a new lawsuit this week. A group is suing the three companies, accusing them of working together to stop competition for payment card services. The lawsuit says this lead to businesses having to pay higher fees for credit and debit card transactions.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, claims that Apple made illegal deals with Visa and Mastercard to prevent competition. These deals also involved Visa and Mastercard paying a portion to Apple for payments made using Apple Pay on their networks.
The lawsuit also says that Apple doesn’t allow other companies to use the iPhone’s wireless payment chip. This means that Apple Pay is the only option for people who want to use their iPhone to make payments.
The lawsuit also alleges that Apple didn’t develop its own payment network, which would have led to lower fees for businesses. The group claims that Apple, Visa, and Mastercard agreed to work together to make sure Apple Pay only ran on Visa and Mastercard networks. This prevented others from entering the market.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Apple said they would open up the Apple Pay system to other companies in the European Union. It’s unclear if this will also happen in the United States.
This lawsuit brings up allegations that Apple has been facing for a while. It will be interesting to see how the case develops and if Apple Pay will become more open in the future.