MasterCard Inc has lost a court challenge seeking to overturn a European Union decision that the company’s cross-border card fees violated antitrust rules.

The EU’s General Court backed the European Commission’s decision that MasterCard unfairly inflated the transaction fees paid by retailers for processing payments. The second-biggest card network argued the so-called multilateral interchange fees were crucial for sharing costs of debit and credit card payments. The case tested whether such levies are unfair to retailers and customers and could be a road-map for national regulators to pursue their own complaints. – (Bloomberg)