On November 3, 2015, John Cooney addressed an international Seminar organized by the American Bar Association's Section on Antitrust on the new Interchange Fee Regulation promulgated by the European Union. The EU Commission recently issued a regulation that imposed a 0.3% cap on the maximum amount issuers of credit cards may change merchants for processing a transaction and a 0.2% cap on the maximum interchange fee on debit card transactions. Cooney provided a point of reference for analysis of the EU rule by describing the experience in the United States in implementing the limit on interchange fees for debit card transactions imposed by the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Act. Cooney concluded that the difficulties experienced by the United States in implementing the Durbin Amendment demonstrates why the Congress largely abandoned in the 1970s the approach of regulating by establishing maximum prices for a product or service in favor of regulation by imposing functional requirements on regulated entities.
Visit the American Bar Association website for more information.