Mastercard is set to payout up to £200m to affected consumers after a near decade-long lawsuit was agreed upon last Monday (May 19).
Walter Merricks, the class action representative who led the lawsuit against Mastercard back in 2016, has described the £200m compensation as a “fair and just outcome for UK consumers” after Mastercard was found overcharging consumers and businesses on multilateral interchange fees.
Consumers are expected to receive between £45-£70 each if they have paid in the past with Mastercard or at a merchant that offers the card network as an option, and does not require the consumer to own a Mastercard-branded card at any point.
Those eligible for the compensation in the UK must have lived and paid with Mastercard from June 1997 – June 2008. Those living in Scotland who paid with Mastercard are eligible if they have lived there since 1992.
If 5% of claimants come forward to be compensated, the refund will be capped at £45. If fewer than 5% come forward, the payout will be capped at £70. Those affected have until the end of this year to sign up to be compensated.
Merricks stated following the confirmation of approval by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT): “I started this case because I believed that Mastercard’s fees paid by retailers for processing card transactions had been unlawfully high and virtually all UK consumers had lost out for long periods by paying higher prices than they should have done as retailers passed on those costs.
“As the evidence came to be known through the litigation process, this was the position only in a relatively small proportion of transactions and the settlement reflects that. The settlement represents a fair and just outcome for UK consumers.
“On any view, recovering £200m by way of a settlement for UK consumers is a huge sum, and that will translate into a meaningful impact in the pockets of UK consumers.”
A nine-year battle
Merricks first launched his claim against Mastercard in 2016 following findings from the European Commission the payment giant was overcharging consumers with multilateral interchange fees.
From 1992-2008, Merricks alleged that 46 million UK customers had been affected by Mastercard’s attached fees, with the European Commission ruling the company had breached competition laws.
Within the findings Merricks lodged, Mastercard was found to have been overcharging attached fees to businesses that offered their services as a payment method. Therefore, in response, businesses were raising the price of goods to counteract this increase.
Merrick was originally seeking up to £14bn in compensation for those affected by the multilateral interchange fees and was granted to continue this claim after the UK Supreme Court dismissed Mastercard’s appeal to have the case thrown out in December 2020.
Following eight years of legal back-and-forth, CAT approved the £200m settlement between Merrick and Mastercard on February 24 2025, closing one of the first cases of its kind.
