A collection of around 30 retailers, including Amazon and 7-Eleven, have filed a lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard in the latest twist of the ongoing battle between card schemes and US merchants over interchange fees.
After years of wrangling, last summer US retailers reached a $7.25 billion class action settlement with the card schemes but since then thousands of companies have pulled out of the accord.
According to Bloomberg, one collection of retailers filed a new complaint this week, arguing that "once Visa and MasterCard acquired substantial market power over merchants, they maintained it by forcing merchants to pay even higher interchange fees to continue to fund these price-fixing schemes."
An Electronic Payments Coalition spokeswoman told Bloomberg that these "tired arguments" have already been covered and had they had "any merit or strength, they would have been included in the final settlement".
Other suits from groups of retailers are also in progress, while Visa has hit back with its own litigation against Wal-Mart for rejecting the initial settlement.