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MasterCard Fined $648 Million for High EU Card Fees (bloomberg.com)
MasterCard was fined 570.6 million euros ($648 million) by the European Union for imposing rules that regulators said may have artificially raised the costs of card payments in the region. From a report: The European Commission said MasterCard unfairly prevented retailers from seeking cheaper rates from banks outside the EU country where they are based. MasterCard's curbs on cross-border acquiring ended when the EU introduced credit card legislation in 2015. The EU's probe started in 2013 and escalated with a statement of objections two years later. MasterCard last month set aside $650 million to cover the fine, less than a potential 1 billion euros it flagged as a possibility in 2017. The company got a 10 percent fine reduction for cooperating with the EU, regulators said.
I can't believe a credit card company would have high card fees. At least that sounds like an EU problem. They never do that kind of stuff in the US.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
The credit card market is an oligopoly and therefore must be regulated. The EU is right to force Mastercard into lowering its fees.
Sounds to me they are just closing down an ATM where big corporations leech from the population.
Yes mate that's it. The European Regional Development Fund doesn't exist and the poor widdle UK is being oppressed by those nasty foreigners.
I'm glad the EU has measures in place to encourage cooperation without giving away the store. The US frequently settles for pennies on the dollar (on already low fines.) There's no incentive not to commit the bad acts in that case.
Heck, that could be the baseline, and it would be trivial for the EU to add enough interest to the fine to make the four years delay for delay's sake not worth it.
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Because else, tomorrow your 'neighbor' will buy a gun, shoot you dead and take your land. That's why. Especially if he thinks he can gain more than he has to loose. Civilization is a thin veneer, held in check by people paying taxes. At least, that's what the skeptic in me whispers.
The optimist tells me one day we'll reach that federation of planets-like state of civilization science fiction writers dream about. The realist? That one tells me with moderate prosperity for as large a group of people as possible (which includes all those member-states the EU is comprised of) we stand a chance, not hurtling towards world war three. That's why I'm quite upset about the English so hell bent upon impoverishing themselves. Poor neighbors may do crazy things.