The claim says that if between 22 May 1992 and 21 June 2008 you purchased goods and/or services from businesses selling in the UK that accepted Mastercard cards and you were a resident in the UK for part of this period, you may have paid higher prices as a result of Mastercard’s unlawful conduct. The claim further says that although the unlawful conduct was brought to an end, these prices may have remained wrongly elevated for a further two years, namely up until 21 June 2010.

You are automatically a member of the class if you (i) were either a resident in Scotland for a continuous period of at least 3 months between 22 May 1992 and 21 June 2008; or England, Wales or Northern Ireland for a continuous period of at least 3 months between 20 June 1997 and 21 June 2008; (ii) were aged 16 or over during those three months; (iii) (for non-business purposes) bought goods that accepted Mastercard cards – that would include all supermarkets. It is not necessary that you held or used a Mastercard card to make those purchases; and (iv) were living in the UK on 6 September 2016.

Mr Merricks and Mastercard agreed to settle the collective proceedings on 3 December 2024 (see here). The settlement was approved by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) at a three day hearing that took place from 19 to 21 February 2025, with the Tribunal stating that the £200 million settlement was “just and reasonable” pursuant to Rule 94 of the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules and section 49A(5) of the Competition Act 1998. You can find further information on the Settlement Updates page. Given the settlement has been approved, the collective proceedings are now discontinued other than for the purposes of distributing the settlement to class members. On 20 May 2025, the Tribunal handed down its written judgment (here) which will now allow the millions of UK consumers who are part of the class to come forward and claim their share of the £200 million, with individuals potentially getting between £45 and £70 each. On 31 October 2025, the Tribunal handed down the Collective Settlement Approval Order (here) which officially brings the collective proceedings to an end, directs Mastercard to pay the £200 million settlement sum to the class representative by 28 November 2025 and sets out how that £200 million is to be distributed to the class members and other stakeholders. UK consumers will shortly be able to register to receive a payment by completing a simple online form regardless whether they ever held a Mastercard card. Official information on how to claim will be posted on this website in the coming weeks.

Consumers who made purchases from businesses selling in the UK between 1992 and 2008 could be affected by a collective consumer claim against Mastercard.

This website has been created to provide information about a collective consumer claim against Mastercard that was filed with the Tribunal by Walter Merricks CBE (the class representative) on behalf of a “class” of individuals, and which settled for £200 million on 3 December 2024.

The claim followed a legal finding of the European Commission that Mastercard imposed unlawful fees on transactions processed through its network. These fees were paid by businesses for accepting payments made with a Mastercard credit or debit card in the period 1992 to 2008. More than half a million businesses in the UK, including major supermarkets, that accepted Mastercard cards in the relevant period, paid these unlawful fees, and it is alleged passed these on to consumers in higher retail prices.

The claim said that if between 22 May 1992 and 21 June 2008 you purchased goods and/or services from businesses selling in the UK that accepted Mastercard cards, at a time at which you were both (1) a resident in the UK for three months in a row, and (2) aged 16 years or over, you paid higher prices as a result of Mastercard’s unlawful conduct - it is not necessary that you held or used a Mastercard card whilst paying those higher prices. The claim was brought on behalf of the class of individuals who meet these conditions except people who work for Mastercard or lawyers or judges in the case. If you meet these conditions, the claim also said that you paid higher prices until 21 June 2008, and possibly for two years thereafter, until 21 June 2010, during what is known as a “run-off period”, and so the claim also sought to recover losses during the run-off period.

Although Mr Merricks filed his claim in 2016, it was disallowed by the Tribunal, so he appealed to the Court of Appeal which overturned the Tribunal’s decision. Mastercard appealed against that decision to the Supreme Court which upheld Mr Merricks’ claim in December 2020. The case was remitted to the Tribunal for redetermination, and a hearing took place on 25–26 March 2021 to consider whether the claim should be allowed to proceed. Judgment following that hearing was handed down on 18 August 2021, with the Tribunal finding that Mr Merricks’ claim was both eligible and suitable to be certified as a collective proceeding, the first of its kind in UK legal history. A case management hearing took place in January 2022 and in a judgment handed down on 9 March 2022, the Tribunal confirmed that class members who had died since the claim was filed on 6 September 2016, will be succeeded in the proceedings by the personal/authorised representative of their estate. Mastercard appealed the 9 March 2022 judgment to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal on 29 November 2022.

The Tribunal subsequently decided to split the case into several issues to be determined at separate hearings. We give a brief summary below of those issues, which were factors that were taken into account by Mr Merricks in reaching the decision that settling the collective proceedings for £200 million was in the best interests of the class.

1. Causation and Value of Commerce: A hearing to determine: (i) whether there was a relevant causal link between the levels of EEA MIFs and the levels of domestic interchange fees; and (ii) what the volume of Mastercard’s commerce was (to assist calculation of consumers’ loss) was heard between the 5–28 July 2023. The judgment following this hearing was handed down on 26 February 2024.
   
   
   1. Mr Merricks prevailed on three key points. The Tribunal accepted Mr Merricks’ submissions on the interpretation of the relevant rules, finding that the unlawful intra-EEA interchange fees applied as a default in the UK (which will have important implications for the future of the case). The Tribunal also held that ‘on-us’ transactions which involve the same issuing and acquiring bank in the transaction did have an interchange fee applied to them, contrary to the arguments of Mastercard. The value of winning on this issue represents 18% of the volume of commerce. The Tribunal also found that Mastercard’s interchange fees were not set by reference to cost studies (which was a key pillar of Mastercard’s defence).
   
   2. Mr Merricks is disappointed with the Tribunal’s finding on whether there was a factual causal link between the EEA MIFs and domestic interchange fees. Mr Merricks considers that the Tribunal failed to properly consider the factual evidence before it and also went beyond the legally permissible findings it could make. Mr Merricks tried to appeal this judgment, but unfortunately, the Court of Appeal refused Mr Merricks’ application for permission to appeal.
   
   3. As recognised by the Tribunal in the judgment, it was only addressing “the first stage in the chain of causation”, and the determination of the legal issue of causation would address what would have happened in the absence of the unlawful interchange fees charged by Mastercard. This would need to be the subject of a future trial.
   
   
2. Preliminary issues, including exemptibility, applicable law, and certain limitation/prescription points. A hearing on certain ‘preliminary’ issues was held between 12–17 January 2023. The Tribunal handed down its ruling on 21 March 2023, in which Mr Merricks won the exemptibility and applicable law issues and Mastercard won on the limitation issue. Both Mr Merricks and Mastercard lodged appeals relating to the issues decided against them. These appeals/permission to appeal applications were heard between 1–3 May 2024. The Court of Appeal agreed with the Tribunal’s decision and dismissed Mastercard’s appeal on exemptibility. However, it refused the parties’ applications for permission to appeal on the other issues.
3. Limitation: A hearing to determine whether some of the claims brought by Mr Merricks are time-barred to the extent the cause of action arose prior to 20 June 1997 was heard between 15–26 January 2024 (with 6 sitting days). The Tribunal found in Mastercard’s favour under limitation rules that apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which means that the claims between 22 May 1992–20 June 1997 are time-barred for English, Welsh, and Northern Irish class members. The legal position is different under Scots law, and that means claims for that earlier period are not time-barred for Scottish class members. Mr Merricks has a separate outstanding appeal on limitation which, if the settlement is not approved in February 2025, is due to be heard on 16 July 2025.
4. Pass-on: The pass-on issues in Mr Merricks’ claim were being determined alongside similar pass-on issues that arise in respect of claims by thousands of businesses against Visa and Mastercard regarding interchange fees, which are being heard together in the “Merchant Proceedings”. The pass-on issues are twofold: (i) “Merchant Pass-on” which concerned whether merchants passed-on alleged illegal overcharges to consumers by way of higher prices; and (ii) “Acquirer Pass-on” which concerned whether acquiring banks which paid interchange fees to Visa and Mastercard, passed on the overcharge to merchants. The trial of these issues was split in two. The first part of the trial was on Merchant Pass-on and was heard between 18 November 2024–17 December 2024. The second part of the trial on Acquirer Pass-on and the final submissions relating to Merchant Pass-on were heard for a period of two weeks from 24 March 2025, albeit Mr Merricks withdrew from the second part of the trial following the approval of the collective settlement with Mastercard on 21 February 2025. On 18 February 2026, the Tribunal handed down its judgment on pass-on. In relation to Merchant Pass-on, it held that save for a few specific sectors (such as cash services, insurance underwriting and travel agents and online intermediaries), Mastercard and Visa failed to establish that merchants passed on any of the alleged overcharges to consumers. Even for the few sectors where pass-on was established, save for the cash services sector (i.e. companies engaging in services such as online money transfer) for which the Defendants proved full pass-on, the pass-on was less than 50%. In relation to Acquirer Pass-on, it held that the evidence points clearly to a substantial level of pass-on from the acquirers to the merchants. Whilst the Tribunal did not determine the pass-on position in the collective proceedings, which relate to an earlier period in time, the findings in the Merchant Proceedings suggest that the Tribunal would likely have found that it was the merchants, rather than UK consumers, who suffered loss from the unlawful overcharges, as it is unlikely it would have reached inconsistent positions for the two periods and indeed the case advanced by Mr Merricks was that there should be no such distinction. In light of this judgment, Mr Merricks’ decision to settle the claim during the pass-on trial, is reinforced as being the correct decision in terms of the interests of the class – as it guaranteed the class will recover even given the difficulties to establish pass-on to consumers. It also demonstrates the misconceived stance taken by Mr Merricks’ litigation funder in opposing the settlement and wanting the case to continue, as the class may have received nothing if Mr Merricks could not establish pass-on. The judgment can be read here. Mastercard and Visa have applied to the Tribunal for permission to appeal, with that application pending with the Tribunal.”