The WikiLeaks Suit against Visa and MasterCard
You may have heard that WikiLeaks is suing Visa and MasterCard for refusing to process donations to it.
That’s not actually the case. Forbes has gotten a copy of the complaint, and as it lays out, an Icelandic company called DataCell is suing, and it’s suing in Europe, not the US. DataCell is basically a hosting service for WikiLeaks and “businesses, NGOs, humanitarian organisations and others.” It had contracted with two payment services companies, Teller and Korta, on October 18, 2010, with the explicit intention of accepting donations for WL. But on December 7 (not long after the WL cables started coming out), they terminated those services. But that affects both WL and any other clients DataCell might have. And according to an explanation from Teller, no payment services company will contract with DataCell, even if it doesn’t work with WL.
[A]ccording to Teller’s explanations acquiring firms in Europe are not about to be allowed by MC and Visa to open merchant agreements with DataCell, irrespective of whether the company would service Sunshine press/Wikileaks as a payment facilitator or not.
And that’s true even though DataCell has nothing more than business relationship with WL.
There are no ownership or “board or management” connections between DataCell and the Sunshine Press Foundation, the corporate part of Wikileaks. The relationship between DataCell and Sunshine Press/Wikileaks is a pure business relationship.
DataCell also notes that Visa and MasterCard have sustained relationships with other media outlets that have published WL content.
Of note, Teller is also the company that has admitted that WL had broken none of Visa’s rules or Iceland’s laws.
Teller has found no signs indicating that Sunshine Press acts in contravention of Visa rules or national legislation in Iceland. Neither Teller nor Visa licence holders may enter into any agreement with Sunshine Press on the possessing of Visa payments, until this has been approved by Visa Europe. Teller now awaits Visa Europe’s approval.
All of which is the basis for DataCell’s argument that by refusing to let any of its payment services companies in Europe to provide services to DataCell, Visa and MasterCard have violated Europe’s competition laws. It argues that they have used their monopoly position–Visa has 68% of the market and Mastercard has 28%–to prevent DataCell from competing in Europe.
Now, I have no idea how this suit will fare legally.
But I’m interested in what it does rhetorically. Effectively, DataCell has been treated like companies that provide material support for terrorism (without being listed in any list of entities that do so); either through US intervention or via voluntary actions from Visa and MasterCard, they have singled out DataCell to put out of business because of its tie to WL. And it has done so in a market that is none too impressed with US claims about WL’s dangerousness, nor with US bigfooting Europe on data issues.
Effectively, it calls attention to the way that Visa and MasterCard abuse their monopoly position to do the bidding of the US.
We’ll see how that goes over with European consumers.
Good catch, EW! Please someone keep an eye on this for us!
Meanwhile, also on the financial services front, we have this:
Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks
By DAVID STREITFELD, Published: July 2, 2011.
I may be affected by this, as my wife has one of those godawful ARMs that sound like the ones discussed in the article. Her mortgage is due to balloon in December. Like many others, these big banks may want to avoid another wave of foreclosures as these mortgages start to balloon– and since many of them were made at the same time during a particular marketing frenzy, they may all start to balloon about the same time, too.
Bob in AZ
Bon
ARM’s a selectively not-so-bad.
1. What’s the index for your ARM? T-Bill is best.
2. What’s the max percentage/year that it can be raised?
3. What’s the index cap?
I had an ARM indexed to T-Bills, and the rate when down.
Good question. I’ll look for the answer.
Bob in AZ
I support this case and find the arguments fairly compelling legally; but do not know squat about EU law, therefore have no clue as to the chances for success. It does seem to be more in the form of request for regulatory relief than a traditional lawsuit, but again, being unfamiliar with the protocols, it is hard to tell.
I am curious as to why DataCell and WL cannot form their own payment system that is capable of accomplishing the goal. The porn industry did this through a company known as “CCBill”. I guess it is because, even if they did, VISA and MC would not allow payments to them and this is typified by Teller and Korda. Still, you would think there would be some way around the issue.
I think that’s what DataCell has done, isn’t it?
Yes, sorry, they have. However it appears that they are kind of secondary though in that while DataCell has used its Kerfisþróun arm to do this activity, it really relies on Teller and/or Korta to do the lifting. At least from what I can tell on a quick read.
I mentioned CCBill, but I think the difference is that while CCBill was set up a literally a “PayPal for porn” because PayPal and similar entities discriminated against the porn industry and did not want their business, CCBill is able to accept payments from the payment card folks at VISA and MC. That said, CCBill also has available modalities to accept payment via “check by phone”, “online check” and “telephone billing”. You would think DataCell and WL would at least be able to utilize the last three modalities even if VISA and MC insist on choking off any potential use of their services, even to an intermediary like Teller and Korta.
It really is objectionable what VISA and MC are doing though, sure looks like good merit to the complaint here.
I don’t think CCBill can answer the question exactly. They are a verification and processing service like Real-Share was back in the day (also used by porn).
CCBill still looks to be at the mercy of Visa and Mastercard. I know for porn, the only way *anyone* would process transactions was with an explicit agreement not to contest any charge-backs on major credit cards – and that policy was required by the major CC companies. My point being that Visa/MC still call the shots even if there is a third-party in the middle.
CCBill would be out of business if Visa/MC were to blackball them across-the-board as they have DataCell (as would all the porn sites that rely on it). I think one of the major objectives behind Visa/MC doing what they have done the way they have done it was to threaten all potential servicers who might otherwise be inclined to help Wikileaks process donations. In order to capitalize on alternative payment methods, WL needs to find a processor that specializes only in those niche products without any exposure to potential American corporate retaliation.
Exactly.
It does maybe seem that WL or DataCell could do the lesser and more direct modalities like check by phone, online check and telephone billing. Problem is, those are really fringe methods; most people would likely be at least worried, if not adverse to doing online or phone check is my guess, and I think the phone billing is limited as to size. So, even at the very best, not a real substitute.
Ironic that people who support a rogue organization that is in business to expose classified information that puts people’s lives at risk, would be afraid to contribute via methods that would out their own secrets at risk.
Ironic that a country that founded itself on the concept of enlightened self-governance, of, for and by the people — would keep secrets FROM the people. That’s nonsense.
Of the people, for the people, and by the people. When you release secrets that endanger the people, you hurt the people.
Some secrets need to stay classified.
Your system immediately creates two classes of people: those who may keep secrets [i.e., withhold information from other citizens], and those who can’t access those secrets. Are you already a member of the secrecy oligarchy, or are you just brainwashed enough that you suppose that those secrets will never hurt YOU? You’re well on the way in your thinking to a society of a privileged elite class, and a class of commoners. And of course, “secrets” can be used to hide embarrassing information. From what I’ve read, I’d guess that 90% of secrets are improperly classified. But the public has no way to challenge this abuse.
What we need is a security court, or at least a law which allows secrets to be examined by competent *independent* authorities, and argued in closed proceedings (as needed) before a (panel of?) judge(s). There must be some due process here.
Bob in AZ
There was NEVER any contemplation that the American government would possess the ultimate transparency you claim to seek. That was never part of the founding, never part of the reality, and never will be part of the reality.
Way more than I think you acknowledge. Thinking about juries. You support them being dumbed down and disabled from exercising their conscience to nullify law they find unjust or unjustly applied in the instant case, unable to serve if they don’t agree to follow the law as the judge instructs them. And was it you (maybe not?) who told me that if a lawyer even thinks of reasoning law with a jury the case gets tossed? Well, dude! There’s your problem. That was one of the things Slavoj Zizek was making a point about yesterday — the death of public reasoning. Which I see also as the death of national conscience. And it is NOT, NOT, NOT what the Constitution and Founding Fathers intended. I’ve posted before clear quotes from John Adams and John Jay in his capacity as first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Thomas Jefferson and… I mean, the list goes on and on, yet when those words are printed on a FIJA flyer and a retired professor hands them out in the vicinity of a courthouse now, he gets arrested! Owww! (Though it’s still ok for the guys who wrote The Wire to say them in a Time magazine op-ed:)
And there’s nothing about government secrets in the Constitution, and as I understand it the grounds for treason are so weakly and nebulously written that that clause was put in to PREVENT people from being declared treasonous. I think I learned that from Scott Horton of Harper’s in one of his interviews on Antiwar Radio.
The thing of the thing of it all is that what goes round needs to come round, to be healthy. That health is circulation amongst the people and its government, it’s not something handed down to them from a guy on top of a pyramid. All those people up there in positions on the pyramid, they’re hardly people anymore, they’re entities, like corporate people, funny how that works out. Our nation is being run by conscienceless, sick entities now. Think tourniquet, think rubber band. They’re up there turning purple and black and falling off, they’re so sick. I mean, even John F. Kennedy, he knew it, I remember reading something where he said he was acting as the president, not as himself — distinction was made about what actions were possible when you’re serving as a position. A government of, for and by the people makes sure that the people understand and consent to what their government does. Juries were supposed to be there to be the failsafe of last resort, of constant resort, constantly checking and balancing. All those clauses in the first amendment — freedom of press (thank you jury nullification, John Peter Zenger), freedom of religion and speech and assembly (thank you jury nullification, William Penn) — just thank you, jury nullification. What’s more — we’re SUPPOSED to be different and bring all our perspectives together and sit and reason as equals. Once you get everybody together, it’s not so strange that people can agree on what’s right or wrong in a particular case. It’s actually natural. And it’s ok to turn left one day and right the next…and the next and the next. Just keep rolling, just keep awake, just keep alive. Now the people can’t turn the boat at all, and we’ve got an idiot president who “leads from behind” like a little rudder on a big captainless boat. Hey, stay that course, we certainly will.
In short, we’re not supposed to be a stupid fucking empire! We’re supposed to be conscious and fair and inclusive! We’re not supposed to be reality-blind and win-lose! We’re supposed to reason together as parts of a whole, friendly — not toxic to each other, not out to get each other.
I have too much to say and I know I’ve said it here before. What it is.
Except, except — !! Lawyers! Courts! Idiots! (God love ’em.) You’re the last to see it! You’re the reason juries are disabled and corporations are “persons”!
Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.
“Corporations do everything people do except breathe, die and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River.” –Stephen Colbert
Jury nullification already exists in the only way it should. Specifically instructing juries that the law can be disregarded means there is no law. There is a reason that most people who scream for “jury nullification” don’t have any experience actually practicing in front of juries. It is insane.
So, I take it you think there should be no presumption of innocence right? Because jury nullification in the absurd way you picture it would remove the presumption of innocence.
I also take it that you do not believe the burden of proof in criminal cases should be beyond a reasonable doubt. Because jury nullification would blow that concept up too.
I could go on ad infinitum about this absolute insanity gutting every semblance of law (as you seem willing to do blithely supporting it). TThe FIJA is a stunt by a bunch of dogmatic assholes. I have dealt with them personally. A group of them physically and rudely invaded my office once convinced I was going to be their poster boy because I was in a trial and was engaging in a theory of case the prosecutor argued amounted to effective nullification. I literally had to threaten to call the police to get the fuckers to leave my office and leave my staff alone. I have not one single ounce of respect whatsoever for those disingenuous bastards.
Oh, and as to this mumbo jumbo:
I have no idea in the world what you are talking about; it doesn’t even make sense. Please do not associate that with me; I said nothing of the sort.
wtf are you talking about, no presumption of innocence? No reasonable doubt? Gah!!
As to the case in your office, write a diary and I’ll try and understand what happened. But basically you refute everything FIJA flyers quote, John Jay, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, all of them — and you support arresting the retired professor for leafleting their words outside a courthouse? And you support potential jurors being tossed if they refuse to relinquish their conscience to the judge? And you support the conduct of the trial of Bidder 70, Tim DeChristopher?
You agree with the 1895 Sparf court…
…over 1794 John Jay?
In short, you are down with the death of public reason and the constitutional due process of juror review? I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
FIJA is not the subject of this thread. Just stop with this please and I do not owe you a post on it either; if you want to proselytize, please feel free to write a post over at MyFDL.
Secrecy vs public reason is. Wikileaks. Citizens. Of, by and for the people. What it’s all about. Certainly you don’t owe me a post, but I was offering to understand what I thought you were attempting to communicate.
So much for communication. Stay purple.
Cannot speak for others, but my concern would be security in giving access to direct access to bank accounts, not that they would know who I am. I figure credit cards are traceable too, but they do provide a barrier to access to full bank accounts and some measure of fraud liability limitation.
I understand your point, but banks are required to grant the same protection in cases where people’s accounts are fraudulently accessed. If people want to support treachery, there are plenty of ways to do so. MC and Visa don’t have a monopoly in the payments space, just a narrow definition.
In the Assange streaming interview yesterday (happy 40th birthday Julian!) Amy Goodman asked him why Wikileaks hasn’t released the promised Bank of America documents, and his answer was something like “blackmail” — which he wouldn’t specify but said whatever might come to your mind, it would be one of your top two choices.
It’s a stream, no podcast, no transcript, more’s the pity. I heard a lot of interesting things I’d like to go back and look at closer.
One of the things he said was that he took heart from Chinese censorship, because that meant the process of moving decisionmaking from politicization to financialization wasn’t complete, that people’s opinions still mattered. Amy’s other guest, Slavoj Zizek, told a story he had heard recently that China has just banned stories about time travel or alternate realities — like, don’t even go there. The reality you’re presented is the one you have to believe.
And he talked about grand juries — specifically the one in Alexandria VA, 6 km away from DC (“more government workers per capita than anyplace else in America”), which made me think about Jane Hamsher running into Lynndie England there last month and the cases being considered. He actually had quite a bit to say about the perversion of justice and how it’s being done — grand juries in America, European extradition agreements post 9/11 where facts don’t matter, just checking the right box on the right form. Like I said, I wish I had a transcript. (Does anyone know how to record streaming sound?)
You may be able to get a copy using RealPlayer. IIRC, that does allow capturing livestreams.
Yes, hearing Julian Assange whine about American grand juries would sure be illuminating. And he has neither been charged nor extradited. Facts DO matter, Assange ought to try getting a grip on them before spewing his rap.
Why the bitterness toward Assange?
Because I think the rap that has been being laid on the EDVA GJ is a load of crap. The inquiry, according to reports including that of David House, of the attendant to the GJ all surrounded Manning and the hacker community in Massachusetts, which are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry for an investigative grand jury. Whether people want to admit it or not, crimes, and putatively serious ones, were committed and there were massive security lapses demonstrated. Assange makes it sound, narcissistically, like it is all about him; it isn’t. I will happily defend to death his 1st Amendment rights, status and protections; however, I often think he should just shut the fuck up.
Thanks.
Trust me if and when they go after Assange with charges, I will scream bloody murder and holy hell with you.
I DON’T want him to STFU, TYVM. I’m grateful that he does what he does. That’s my bias. I wish I had a transcript so he could speak for himself, because what I heard made sense to me, but one thing I remember is that he said England ended grand juries because they had proven to be inherently secret and unjust, and that at our grand juries there are four prosecutors and no defenders — why a ham sandwich can be indicted — they’re basically an executive-justice hybrid and not a check and balance at all. That’s a history I don’t know at all, although I am familiar with the criticism that the executive fills Supreme Court vacancies solely from the prosecutorial side of the law and not from the defense. Do you know the UK-USA grand jury arguments? Appreciate your input, though we fundamentally disagree on Assange.
Well, any tool of justice can be abused and misused, and that certainly includes GJs. But, at least conceptually, I see no problem with having grand juries, I think they are a good thing. There is no defense portion, because they are doing nothing but either investigating or determining probable cause for charging purposes. You have to understand that if there were no GJs, the government would simply swear out direct complaints; there is no “defense” component to that, in fact there is even less protection than the somewhat independent decision of the members of the GJ. So, I think the stuff Assange is spewing is just pretty much bunk. Add that to the concern I expressed previously and that is why I am not too keen on his GJ schticht.
Democracy Now is running the livestream continuously — I’m listening again — hopefully the grand jury part will come up soon.
http://www.democracynow.org/
ok, I did a transcript of what Assange had to say about grand juries. The lead-in was Amy Goodman asked him to comment on Bradley Manning, so this would be in reference to a Manning grand jury in Alexandria:
I have practiced extradition law involving the U.S. and number of continental European countries. Being charged with a felony or having at least a year of a sentence left to serve was the predicate to a request for extradition under any U.S. extradition treaty with which I was familiar. Extradition requests certainly had to lay out probable cause to believe that a crime covered by the applicable treaty had been committed, and that the subject of the extradition request had committed it.
The one U.K. case with which I assisted was a revelation: the U.K. required the extradition request to include practically the whole case – depositions, documents, an amazing amount of material. Thank goodness that we didn’t need to translate it all! It was probable cause and then some.
In the late 1990s I once discussed with a U.K. police official the matter of provisional arrest with a view toward extradition on the basis of INTERPOL Red Notices. http://www.interpol.int/ He thought that it would never happen. INTERPOL Red Notices carried a brief statement of facts, probably edited for brevity by a clerk with no legal training before translation at INTERPOL’s General Secretariat in Lyon, France. Probable cause these were not.
So hearing from Assange that the U.K. could now extradite him to Sweden based on a post-9/11 European arrest warrant, reportedly having for substantiation but a two-page form with ‘Rape’ checked by police or prosecutor, and no charges filed whatsoever, was a real shock. The judiciary provides some check on the filing of criminal charges. What Assange said about the lowering of European legal standards through lack of any judicial check on issuance of these European arrest warrants was right on the money.
I do not disagree with Assange’s complaints about the Swedish-British extradition issue; I am a little taken aback by that as well. So, You will get no fight from me on that; completely agree. I do, however, take issue with his constant rap that the US going to extradite him and that the entire EDVA GJ is about him and getting him charged up and extradited. Well there are no charges here and the latest report from the GJ indicated there was no particular examination in relation to Assange/WikiLeaks. And yet Assange, House, and all their minions just relentlessly paint it as if it all is all about only Assange/WL. While i admit there is concern there, the relentless hyperbole and disingenuous painting of the process annoys me. There were crimes committed (apparently by Manning and the govt is entitled to see if by others) and it is legitimate to investigate them.
The extradition section of the July 2 Livestream interview in London:
I studied w/Zizek in grad school. He’s a great entertainer. But I learned to really distrust his intellect.
for Mac i use Audio Hijack Pro
Hard to tell, but it looks like it’s for a Mac? I’m Linux on a CD, I don’t think I can even install software. Plus I’m ticked. I basically just want a podcast! I don’t want to hijack or rip off anything. Why don’t streaming sites like Livestream and Ustream make podcasts available? Think Netroots Nation, all those panels basically kept on a hard-to-reach shelf. I mean, I think that’s profoundly, inexplicably fail.
But thank you and scribe @14 — I’m so no tech I just got my camera out and recorded the sound from the speakers. I gave up.
Thanks for the transcribed portions, and as I said above, I do consider his arguments on the EU extradition issues far more meritorious.
I am not so good tech wise either, so am no help. But will say, the Netroots panels and recordings I think are available online, and have been playing here and there all weekend on CSPAN.
Assange on Bank of America “blackmail”:
Oh fuck, come on. Julian Assange is either the hero people like you make him out to be, or he is just another schlep subject to forces greater than him; neither he nor you get to play it both ways. Make up your mind.
Another example of the exceedingly close relationship between financial behemoths and the US government, what I, and others, refer to as Corporatism, but which had other more famous names in the 20th Century.
And there may be, it seems, similar relationshps between European countries and the EU and its own financial monopolies, behemoths, Too Big Too Fail entities.)
Sometimes the government calls the shots — sometimes the Too Big Too Fail financial entities call the shots. Sometimes it seems the TBTF entities have a pretty sizable edge in this Corporoatist relationship….
In related news, Microsoft admits it can’t shield its European cloud servers from the PATRIOT Act.
Slightly off-topic. Assange was interviewed yesterday, and the interview is here.
Awww… No hat tip…? ;-)
Mahalo for the excellent analysis, as always, EW and bmaz…! *g*
Sorry if I missed a hat tip. I’m not even sure how I found this article. But if you sent a link, I certainly apologize.
Yesterday’s DSK post…
@ 3:03 pm
172
bmaz, Forbes’ Andy Greenberg posted the Wikileaks complaint…
Here’s The Legal Complaint WikiLeaks Is Threatening To File Against Visa, MasterCard…
To which nobody responded to…! ;-)
Interesting.
There seems to be a lot of typos in the document, which might indicate it’s a draft or might indicate all the complainant could afford was a smallish lawyer who will promptly be swamped.
But, given the little I know about European antritrust law (other than the quaint fact that they still do enforce their antitrust laws), the complainant seems to have a pretty strong basis for complaining.
The choice of venue and forum is both unsurprising and interesting. There is no way any sane Euro would file a case like this in American courts after the way the government colluded with Cisco (IIRC) against that Nigerian executive they had arrested in Canada duringhis deposition. IF the USG are merciful enough to not pull that kind of stunt again, they will simply refuse plaintiffs complaining against Corporate America any entry to the US and then dismiss their suits for failing to appear in court to prosecute them.
On the other hand, they likely don’t have enough information at this juncture to plead a case against Visa and MasterCard in US courts that would stand up to a motion to dismiss under Iqbal (thank you, AG Ashcroft).
It’s going to dawn on Americans in another 8 or 10 years, but the world is so over America. We are, to them, no longer a shining city on the hill. Rather, to them we are the rough equivalent of a mid-80s Brazilian favela: a shithole of violence, vice and corruption, official and unofficial, best avoided in the hope that you won’t get hit by stray bullets. Just ask the salesmen from Boeing, who got their heads handed to them by Airbus.
I noticed the typos too; also thought the case laid out simply and decently.
o/t Oklahoma City bombing case file too massive to search, FBI tells Utah judge
Deseret News, July 1, 2011
More:
has links to filings
Digital files, of course, are easily searchable. Digital techniques for searching analog records have been around for quite some time, beginning, in fact, about the time of this bombing. The intel services devoted huge resources to making their analog records digitally searchable in the late ’90’s, early ’00’s.
It would be no surprise if the FBI were behind the times technologically. It has a long history of that, including billions in wasted IT dollars and a famous inability of individual offices to talk with each other. Just as possibly, however, is that the Bureau does not want to provide the court the information requested; believability is a key to any good ruse.
As I understand the background, there’s known Murrah Bldg videotape that’s gone missing. It was circulated to law enforcement offices at the time of the bombing, and a reporter from the LA Times saw it, but then it was withdrawn–I’m guessing when the decision was made to lose John Doe No. 2–which is Jesse Trentadue’s connection, his brother Kenney was apparently killed by FBI interrogators in August 1995 in prison when he was mistaken for John Doe No. 2, and Jesse’s been FOIAing ever since he learned that. One thing he’s found in his FOIAs is that Eric Holder’s job in the Clinton administration DOJ was to cover up Kenney’s killing and squelch Congressional review of the Oklahoma City bombing. (I’ve commented about that lots of times, just do a search here on “Trentadue” or “Eric Holder sucks.”)
The video should have been the perfect evidence at McVeigh’s trial, but iirc only a grainy still photo was used. A local TV news station did its own re-creation of the video back then, which you can watch on youtube, and I did a transcript here. Of note, this is WAY different from the MSNBC recreation done for the Rachel Maddow special on McVeigh, in that it shows that John Doe No. 2 is the last one to leave the truck and apparently the one who detonated it, and in Rachel’s bombing video recreation and special there was no John Doe 2 mention at all (one line at the end?).
This was such prime evidence, it’s crazy for the FBI to say they can’t find it now, and I found the FBI’s statement @16 to the court about searching pages for a year and a half to be a clear statement that it is still misdirecting the court.
This may be the key part from the transcript:
Jesse Trentadue has been given other videotapes by the FBI in response to his FOIAs — and they all have blanks where the Ryder truck would have been.
Gotta say, it looks like John Doe No. 2 has been pretty well scrubbed from wikipedia too. Their page for the bombing (“redirect from John Doe Number 2“) only shows the drawing of McVeigh and not the one released with it at the same time of John Doe No. 2, and that drawing is not mentioned in the related wikipedia conspiracy theories page, nor does his name there link to anything.
Interesting.
Oh, jesus christ, now you are going to spew some OK City conspiracy shit?? Please, this is just crap.
In a general/political way, I like
as a framework for thinking about regulation in non- or anti-competitive, dominated markets.
Did you hear? I’ve got a bunch of sentence fragments for notes…
yes? tell us more? I’m still trying to figure out his T-shirt
As I was reading the article, I was thinking that Visa-MasterCard ought to be busted up for holding monopoly power and then I got to the part about the violation of competition laws. It seems obvious to me that the case against V-MC has plenty of legal merit.
Having a dominant position is not per se illegal in the EU, only abusing it. That said, Visa and MC are alleged to have done it in the past. It’s hard to prove. Among other things, the terms of their merchant agreements are jealously guarded discrimination is more often less direct than is alleged here.
In general, there are four sets of contracts involved with these payment groups: 1) those between the principal banks that formed and operate the two payment services groups; and 2) the traditional three-way arrangements involving payment group-merchant; merchant-retail customer; and customer-bank issuing the payment card. The complaint here centers on the merchant-payment group contracts known as “merchant agreements”.
Does having the statements from Teller help their case on that front? It doesn’t get you to the agreements. But it does get you to some evidence that DataCell is being discriminated against.
Yes, it’s the EU and they have their own laws. Thank you for all the information provided.
I was thinking while reading the article about what ought to happen in the US since Visa-MC has a virtual monopoly here. However, in today’s political climate (as alluded to by scribe in #36), there is no concern for fairness and keeping markets truly free.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act would not pass today with all of the Republicans and most of the Democrats being complete whores to whoever has the most money. I’m a little surprised that Republicans haven’t yet gotten around to trying to repeal it by arguing that it is “government regulation that penalizes success.”
From the Assange Democracy Now interview yesterday:
“Seeming legal merit” has very little to do with how antitrust cases turn out.
This is a complaint to the European Commission’s competition directorate (DGIV) in Brussels, which is responsible for enforcement of the EU antitrust laws (along with state courts). The filing is a high profile administrative action; the complainant states it has not filed a separate action in an EU state court.
MasterCard and Visa are dominant players in the EU (and worldwide) credit industry. There is a history of allegations that one or both have abused their dominant positions and engage in abusive trade practices. They are reputed to guard the terms of their merchant contracts and their “proprietary” practices as zealously as Coke protects its unpatented formula or Disney its TM in its big-eared mouse.
Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty are the principal EU competition rules. They deal with abusive trade practices and abuse of a dominant position (separate illegal acts). A dominant player abuses its position and engages in abusive practice when, for example, it discriminates by refusing to provide services or differentially enforcing its standard contracts.
The complaint alleges that Visa (67.6%) and MC (27.7%) Europe each and together have a dominant position in the European market for “payment services” (collectively, 95.3%) and that the two abused their position and engaged in abusive trade practices by breaching their contracts to rovide payment services without cause.
If DGIV opens an investigation, it will cause a big stink. It may generate significant adverse publicity for Visa and MC, both of which are known at state and EU levels as playing hardball fiercer than the Yankees. It may lead into areas neither wants the EU to look into, such as other alleged discriminatory behavior involving this complainant or others. It would require them to argue on the facts, which is likely to be awkward for the US and quite possibly Visa and MC.
What do you think the chances of that are?
Thanks for this informative comment.
Agreed. Seems worthy of development as a diary.
Thanks, EOH
Bob in AZ
I thought it was in ya’lls ‘wheelhouse’…! ;-)
Just before that he said…
This story? Doesn’t sound exactly like that:
There is some truth to Julian Assange’s point as quoted. One of the things that is going on is news “cocooning” where a so-called “news” medium such as Fox (there are examples on the Left, too, I’m sure) that help their audience to “digest” the news– interpret it, spin it, and all those elevendy-seven things Roger Ailes figured out after his chat with Nixon. What the public wants is not the news, but how to *understand* the news. 50 years ago, we had only ABC, CBS and NBC, and these were about as alike as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. But then America had a shared view of the world. Then add CNN, and PBS, and before you know it everyone is doing a “news” show, but most of it is spinning and presenting the news of the day to their target audience– which is no longer, really, the entire nation, but some demographic segment that they hope to make money off of.
The result is that we can’t agree on the “facts” any more. People get their “facts” from their favorite news cocoon, and don’t trust anyone else’s version of the facts, whether evidence-based or not.
And the system of primaries that this country is now mired in forces voters to the extremes that have no way of carrying on a conversation because they have little left in common.
WikiLeaks is good because it provides primary data not available anywhere else– without any spin.
I like to hang around EmptyWheel because her posts (and bmaz’s) are always evidence based, well researched, and often accompanied by very insightful analysis that is not mere spinning. I like Rachel Maddow and Eliot Spitzer’s news because they are smart, insightful and present good journalism. But to the Fox News fans, we are all just biased fuzzy-headed liberals.
Bob in AZ
You should take a look at Bob Somerby’s ongoing critiques of Maddow. The latest is last Friday’s entry. You have to scroll down to see it. As you pass through the post you will also see what he thinks of Digby’s latest. You can find it all here.
Yeah, I read just about as much of Somerby as I could stand. I don’t care much for his attitude. Dissing both Digby and Maddow in one post!
I take it for granted that today’s news no longer is an independent voice. Most are considered part of their corporate culture’s “entertainment” programming. So Maddow needs to be entertaining as well as informative. I like the way that, after a set-up, she asks the interviewee if her set-up summary is right or not. Most of the time, the interviewee will concede the accuracy. Once in a blue moon, she’ll get called out by the interviewee in a way that is in itself newsworthy. And she *listens* to her interviewees.
So, who is your favorite news anchor?
Bob in AZ
And these companies have every right NOT to do business with a company that collects funds for traitors.
If a company in Europe wanted to collect money, for, say, a terrorist group, and a US company refused to do business with them, would that be lawsuit you people could support? What if a group allied with a pro-Apartheid group wanted to raise funds?
Or do you only back lawsuits by traitors and thugs who happen to be leftists?
Just exactly who are you calling a traitor? Certainly not Julian Assange, who is an Australian citizen.
Assange is a traitor, and Bradley Manning, if he helped him, is a traitor, too.
As far as I am concerned, if you give documents that aid the enemies of this country, you should be shot.
Of course, Manning is a hero to The Left because he is gay, or because he was forced to sleep in a diaper, or some such other nonsense.
As BearCountry noted, Assange cannot be a traitor since he is not an American. Manning is a young man who may or may not have leaked information – information which most of us believe American citizens had a right to know. We now have a secret government which, if you haven’t noticed, is not working in our favor. I’d like to see ALL the slime come out.
It’s the beret. They love the snappy beret.
bmaz- please refer to post 66 in reply to 54, both put up by trolls (or serfs as I refer to them).
Heh, well I will grant you 54 was not, uh, a particularly well taken comment. Littledom at 64 may have a different view than most here (or not, not sure it is particularly clear either way), but as you can tell, so do I in several aspects in relation to Manning and Assange. These areas are pretty complex and not necessarily subject to simple pro or con discussion; they have also become extremely emotionally charged for many people, but there is room for discussion.
“not particularly well taken” is a bit mild. Stating that support for Manning has anything to do with him being gay is flat out moronic and to jump to that conclusion is a reflection of homophobia. As for Littledom, he/she is just a troll who just comes here to “piss off the libs” (so to speak).
Assange is not a citizen and, therefore, cannot be considered a traitor. geez.
I’d say they women he raped (oh, sorry, allegedly raped) would say he betrayed their trust.
Definition of “traitor” = One who betrays one’s country, a cause, or a trust, especially (but not exclusively) one who commits treason.
(emphasis added)
Geez
Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio interviewing The Other Scott Horton of Harper’s last year:
Nobody of any consequence here said WikiLeaks should or could be charged with treason; so I have no idea what the purpose of this foot long quote is.
Reply to littledom @76, maybe better to Anson Mitchell @54 — “nobody of any consequence here”? (ouch)
bmaz——-Response to 17
You did not make a clear point about the grand jury in VA. In my memory (that could be short), I have always found indictments in a Grand Jury set up. Hardly any acquittal. The important point, I think Assange made was that justice should be transparent. I dont think he was Whining.
Irrespective of whether it was perfectly clear or not, that is what I was talking about. TVT has now gone to the trouble to transcribe Assange on DN and it appears he was talking about the EU situation there. That is an area I have already indicated I also had some issue with and sympathy for.
I have stated my basis for issue with Assange and his supporters in relation to the EDVA GJ and stick by it. He may not have been talking about that here, but he sure as hell has before in other places. I think the govt is entitled to keep certain things secret and classified, and I do not think it is the province of some maladjusted Army private to take it upon himself to perform massive and indiscriminate data dumps in contravention of the law. Shockingly, I also think it legitimate for the government to investigate the same. By the way, the reason there are “hardly any acquittals” from grand juries is that, statistically, most people are guilty and grand juries actually do root out some of the more bogus cases. Beyond that, that is what trials in front of petit juries and rights to due process and confrontation are meant for. The system is not perfect, but it does work on the whole.
So unAmerican! My favorite part of the Assange quote on grand juries was:
“There’s a bailout coming and it’s not for you, it’s for all those creeps hiding what they do” — Neil Young, Fork in the Road
Well, I have my own experience with the criminal justice system, including grand juries, and trust it a hell of a lot more than Julian Assange’s self centered anarchist bullshit ramblings. To each their own.
edit: Reply to @61
Yeah, but you can’t download them even as an audio podcast, and you can’t transcribe them to retain and catapult the good parts, and you can’t listen to them if you’re not online — which for me makes them a crazy waste. I mean, why not?
Wait, C-span? Online? (I have no TV) – (Their transcripts are pretty funny sometimes.) Okay, I see two — identified by one tag: Liberals.
Whoa.
Funny to see our serf trolls engaging in homophobia. I wouldnt expect anything else
Actually just a headwear fan at heart. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And I prefer the term “Capitalist”. I wear that badge as proudly as a snappy beret.
I do not know what you mean by that, nor who you are aiming it at, but it sure appears to be pretty out of line.
Sorry to have been incommunicado. EU competition rules are a complex, specialist area of EU law. They come into play, for example, in the context of mergers and acquisitions, and amid allegations of abuse of a dominant position and abusive trade practices. An example of the latter would be discriminatory practices in contracting with distributors or in the provision of services. Typically, they are dealt with in state court proceedings and state level regulation of anti-competitive behavior. The EU Commission (DGIV) becomes directly involved in a limited number of cases, such as large, high-profile mergers.
I’ll try to find time to do a summary about the jurisdictional requirements the complainant here would need to allege in order for it to get the EU Commission (DGIV) directly involved. They are similar, in theory and by analogy, to the rules required to invoke the jurisdiction of federal courts in the US. Examples of the latter include diversity of citizenship and more than a minimum amount in controversy, and violation of federal law vs. state laws.
What Assange said @44:
Looking forward to your summary.