A US judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Apple, Visa and Mastercard of conspiring to suppress competition in the market for point-of-sale payment card services, according to Reuters.
In December 2023, US beverage business Mirage Wine & Spirits filed an antitrust suit alleging that Apple reached agreements with Visa and then with Mastercard not to use the iPhone to establish its own independent POS network.
In return, the two schemes are accused of agreeing to pay the computer giant a portion of transaction fees for Apple Pay payments running over their respective networks.
This alleged arrangement constitutes a “very large and ongoing cash bribe", removing any reason for thee tech giant to build its own payment network, claimed the suit.
This week, US District Judge David Dugan in Illinois ruled that the merchants who brought the suit only offered “a slew of circumstantial allegations,” according to Reuters.
Apple had argued that the complaint failed to show that the company ever had any plan to enter the payments network market and the judge ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims “completely ignore the difficulties, costs and time, risks, and potential for failure associated with such an endeavour”.
However, Dugan has given the plaintiffs the chance to amend and refile their suit, says Reuters.