The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday sued Visa, the world’s biggest payments network, saying it propped up an illegal monopoly over debit payments by imposing “exclusionary” agreements on partners and smothering upstart firms.
Visa’s moves over the years have resulted in American consumers and merchants paying billions of dollars in additional fees, according to the DOJ, which filed a civil antitrust suit in New York for “monopolization” and other unlawful conduct.
“We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a DOJ release.
“Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service,” Garland said. “As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing – but the price of nearly everything.”
Visa and its smaller rival MasterCard have surged in the past two decades, reaching a combined market cap of roughly $1 trillion, as consumers tapped credit and debit cards for store purchases and e-commerce instead of paper money. They are essentially toll collectors, shuffling payments between the merchants’ banks and cardholders.
More than 60% of debit transactions in the U.S. run over Visa rails, helping it charge more than $7 billion annually in processing fees, according to the DOJ complaint.
But the payment networks’ dominance has increasingly attracted attention from regulators and retailers.
In 2020, the DOJ filed an antitrust suit to block Visa from acquiring fintech company Plaid; the companies initially said they would fight the action, but soon abandoned the $5.3 billion takeover.
In March, Visa and Mastercard agreed to limit their fees and let merchants charge customers for using credit cards, a deal retailers said was worth $30 billion in savings over a half decade. A federal judge later rejected the settlement, saying the networks could afford to pay for a “substantially greater” deal.
“Visa wields its dominance, enormous scale, and centrality to the debit ecosystem to impose a web of exclusionary agreements on merchants and banks,” the DOJ said in its release. “These agreements penalize Visa’s customers who route transactions to a different debit network or alternative payment system.”
Furthermore, when faced with threats, Visa “engaged in a deliberate and reinforcing course of conduct to cut off competition and prevent rivals from gaining the scale, share, and data necessary to compete,” the DOJ said.
The move comes in the waning months of President Joe Biden‘s administration, in which regulators including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have sued middlemen for drug prices and pushed back against so-called junk fees.
In February, credit card lender Capital One announced its acquisition of Discover Financial, a $35.3 billion deal predicated in part on Capital One’s ability to bolster Discover’s also-ran payments network, a distant No. 4 behind Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
Capital One said that once the deal is closed, it will switch all its debit card volume and a growing share of credit card volume to Discover over time, making it a more viable competitor to Visa and Mastercard.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Trader work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Wednesday’s jaw-dropping stock-market rally on President Donald Trump’s surprising tariff reversal is one for the history books.
The S&P 500 skyrocketed 9.52% in a kneejerk reaction to Trump’s announcement to put a 90-day pause on some of the lofty ‘reciprocal’ tariffs. The one-day gain ranks as the third biggest since World War II for the main stock market benchmark, according to FactSet.
The Nasdaq Composite jumped 12.16%, notching its largest one-day jump since January 2001 and second-best day ever.
“This is the pivotal moment we’ve been waiting for,” said Gina Bolvin, president of Bolvin Wealth Management Group. “The immediate market reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, as investors interpret this as a step toward much-needed clarity.”
The market was a coiled spring after a brutal four-day stretch that briefly pushed the S&P 500 into bear-market territory. Over the course of the previous four trading sessions, the S&P 500 suffered a 12% loss, a decline not seen since the pandemic. The Dow lost more than 4,500 points during the four-day stretch, while the Nasdaq was down more than 13%.
While stocks managed to recoup much of the losses, investors are not completely out of the woods as Trump vows to reorient global trade. The president said more than 75 countries contacted U.S. officials to negotiate after he unveiled his new tariffs last week.
“It’s still too early to signal an all clear,” said Dave Sekera, Morningstar’s chief U.S. market strategist. “Trade negotiations have yet to start and once they do, there will be positive and negative headlines as each party positions itself to extract the maximum amount of concessions possible.”
Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, speaks during an interview for an episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” in New York on Nov. 28, 2023.
Jeenah Moon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman let out a sigh of relief after President Donald Trump temporarily dropped some of the steep “reciprocal” tariffs, sparking a monster rally in risk assets.
“Thank you on behalf of all Americans,” Ackman wrote in a post on social media platform X. Shortly after, he added, “[Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent] rocks!”
His comments came after Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs that were imposed on dozens of trade partners, while raising duties on China again to a whopping 125%. Trump said more than 75 countries contacted U.S. officials to negotiate after he unveiled his new tariffs last week.
“The benefit of @realDonaldTrump‘s approach is that we now understand who are our preferred trading partners, and who the problems are,” Ackman said in another post. “This is the perfect setup for trade negotiations over the next 90 days. Advice for China: Pick up the phone and call the President. He is a tough but fair negotiator.”
Ackman, one of the most outspoken backers of Trump on Wall Street, said he was “totally supportive” of Trump using tariffs as a negotiating tool, but as the trade fight escalated quickly, he recently warned that the president might have gone too far.
On Sunday, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said America was heading toward a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter” because of Trump’s steep tariffs, urging a pause for country-specific levies.
“Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe,” said Ackman in an X post over the weekend.
Ackman also accused Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of profiting from the economic crash by betting on government bonds, citing an “irreconcilable conflict of interest.” The billionaire investor subsequently walked back his criticism, calling it “unfair” and saying that outside observers didn’t “know how the sausage was made.”
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A BYD Denza Z9 GT electric car on display in Hong Kong in February 2025.
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BEIJING — Chinese electric car giant BYD is pushing ahead into Europe, launching its premium Denza brand in the region despite rising trade tensions.
The first model, the Z9GT, is set to arrive in European showrooms in the fourth quarter of 2025, BYD said Wednesday during Brera Design Week in Milan. The company did not specify prices or a delivery date for the station wagon-type car.
The Z9GT for Europe will come in both battery-only and plug-in hybrid versions, BYD said.
The European Union last year announced 17% duties on imports of BYD battery electric vehicles over claims of “unfair” production subsidies. Last month, Chinese and EU officials discussed issues related to the electric car supply chain during a meeting in Beijing.
The second Denza model for Europe will be a seven-seat multi-purpose vehicle called the D9, BYD said, without specifying a delivery date.
“We’re thrilled to be introducing Denza to European customers, starting here in Milan and accelerating as 2025 progresses,” Stella Li, executive vice president at BYD, said in a statement.
Surging overseas sales
BYD has ramped up its overseas sales since late 2022. In the first quarter of this year, the company said it sold more than 206,000 cars outside China, more than double that of the year-ago period and already reaching roughly half of the number of cars it sold overseas last year.
The automaker’s first-quarter revenue grew by at least 86% from a year ago to 8.5 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), according to a filing on Tuesday.
BYD noted “substantial growth” in its international sales as it achieved record new energy vehicle sales in the first quarter, with 986,098 passenger cars sold. The Chinese automaker no longer makes traditional fuel-powered passenger cars.
BYD also sold more battery-only passenger cars in the first quarter, with sales of 416,388 units — more than Tesla’s 172,754 vehicles sold in China during that time, according to delivery numbers published by the China Passenger Car Association.