Ann Pope, who was the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) senior director for antitrust from 2014 to 2024, has filed an opt-out collective claim worth about £700 million against Visa and Mastercard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in London, her lawyers announced on Thursday, October 8, 2026. The claim, on behalf of about 126,000 UK businesses, alleges that the two networks overcharged them for accepting online and other remote payments made with cards issued in the European Economic Area (EEA).
The proposed class covers every UK-based business that has accepted at least one such payment on a Visa or Mastercard consumer debit or credit card since October 2020. Businesses are included automatically unless they opt out. Pope brings the case through a special-purpose company she solely owns and controls, represented by competition law firm Geradin Partners. Elm Claims, wholly owned by funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group, is funding it. The claim’s website dates its issue to October 5.
Fees rose fivefold once EU caps stopped applying
The fees at issue are cross-border, or “inter-regional,” interchange fees. When a customer pays a UK business online with an EEA-issued card, the merchant’s acquirer pays this fee to the card issuer, at a default level set by Visa and Mastercard. EU rules capped these fees until the end of 2020, when the UK’s exit from the EU took payments between the UK and the EEA out of their scope. Visa then raised the fees fivefold in October 2021, and Mastercard followed in April 2022, according to the claim, which cites the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).
| Card type | Before the increases | After |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer debit | 0.2% | 1.15% |
| Consumer credit | 0.3% | 1.5% |
In the final report of its market review, on December 13, 2024, the PSR concluded that Mastercard and Visa were not subject to effective competitive constraints, which allowed them to raise these fees “to an unduly high level.” It identified no justification for the increases and put their cost to UK businesses at £150 million to £200 million a year, a range the claim adopts.
The claimants argue that the cost of these transactions stayed substantially the same after Brexit, because the UK remained part of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). They also point out that the CAT has already found inter-regional fees charged by Visa and Mastercard unlawful in a separate case. “Following Brexit, Visa and Mastercard increased the fees charged on these transactions five-fold,” Pope said in the announcement.
The regulator’s price cap is still under study
In December 2024, the PSR proposed a cap in two stages and consulted on starting with an interim one. Mastercard, Visa, and Revolut then sought judicial review of the proposal. On October 10, 2025, the regulator dropped the interim cap, citing the ongoing litigation over its powers to impose a cap, and said it would proceed only after developing a robust methodology to set the level. It opened a consultation on that methodology the same day. In February 2026, it said it had appointed IFF Research to survey UK merchants on what they pay to accept online payments from the EEA. The cap “has not yet been implemented but is still being considered,” said David Gallagher, a partner at Geradin Partners.
Mastercard calls the claim speculative
“We strongly disagree with the basis of this claim,” a Mastercard spokesperson said, as quoted by the Law Society Gazette. Interchange “plays a vital role in supporting the UK payments ecosystem,” the spokesperson said, calling the claim “speculative” and a reflection of “the growing trend of opportunistic funder-backed litigation.” It is “exactly the type of claim the UK government’s recently announced proposed opt-out class action reforms are directed at preventing,” the spokesperson added. The Gazette carried no comment from Visa.
The CAT must still grant a collective proceedings order before the case can go ahead, and eligibility will depend on the final class definition it approves. As of October 9, the tribunal’s online case register did not yet list the claim. The claimants expect the case to take three to four years, and say class members face no personal financial risk.
The CAT’s register already lists several 2026 claims against Visa and Mastercard brought by businesses including Moy Park, Water Plus, and adidas. In the US, Walmart asked a federal judge on September 14, 2026, to reject the interchange settlement the two networks reached with US merchants, as Paypedia reported that day.