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DOJ accuses Visa of monopoly that affects price of 'nearly everything’

Visa and MasterCard have surged in the past two decades, reaching a combined $1 trillion market cap. That has attracted unwanted attention from regulators.

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. 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. 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.

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