Apple, Mastercard and Visa have successfully dodged a lawsuit that claimed the companies were colluding to maintain the current status quo in point-of-sale-payment card services, Reuters reports. The original 2023 lawsuit filed by beverage retailer Mirage Wine and Spirits alleged that Apple was essentially accepting bribes to not develop its open payment network or open up the iPhone's NFC-based "tap to pay" functionality to competitors.
The judge on the case ultimately dismissed it over a lack of evidence that Apple ever planned to offer its own payment network. Apple works with both Visa and Mastercard's payment networks to process transactions through Apple Pay. The company's relationship with the two financial services companies extends into its other financial products — the Apple Cash card in Apple Wallet is a Visa and the Apple Card credit card is a Mastercard — and has existed since the start. The New York Times reported in 2014 that Mastercard, Visa and American Express were all part of the original development of Apple Pay.
The 2023 lawsuit claims that both Mastercard and Visa were paying Apple to maintain that relationship and their own dominance. The iPhone maker was "paid 15 basis points (i.e., 0.15 percent) on the value of all U.S. credit transactions and 0.5 cents ($0.005) on all U.S. debit," according to the lawsuit. Apple's reluctance to open up NFC tap-to-pay to third-party developers was allegedly another way the company maintained Mastercard and Visa's position and allowed them to drive up fees.
However those claims were argued, it wasn't enough to convince the judge. He described them as "a slew of circumstantial allegations," according to Reuters, though he was at least open to the lawsuit being amended and refiled in the future.
Since 2023, Apple has made at least one significant change to how Apple Pay and NFC payments work. As part of its compliance with the European Union's Digital Markets Act, Apple opened up NFC tap-to-pay transactions to any developer building their own contactless payments system, whether they're in Europe, the US or the UK.
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