District Court Dismisses All Claims Brought Against MasterCard by Paycom Billing Services.PURCHASE, N.Y. -- Second graf, third line of release dated April 4, 2005 should read: xxx harm competition (sted do not harm competition) The corrected release reads: DISTRICT COURT DISMISSES ALL CLAIMS BROUGHT AGAINST MASTERCARD BY PAYCOM PAYCOM Payload Command BILLING SERVICES MasterCard International announced today that a U.S. District court judge has dismissed all claims brought against MasterCard International by Paycom Billing Services, Inc. The judge ruled that Paycom suffered no antitrust Antitrust The antitrust laws apply to virtually all industries and to every level of business, including manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and marketing. They prohibit a variety of practices that restrain trade. harm as a result of MasterCard's rules or policies. "MasterCard is pleased that the court agreed that the plaintiff, an aggregator of payment services, failed to demonstrate that the policies at issue in this case harm competition. The judge also recognized that the plaintiff has multiple options for accepting payment, and could choose not to participate in our network," said Eileen Simon, MasterCard associate general counsel. Aggregators provide payment card services The software support for PC Cards. PC Card applications talk to Card Services. See PC Card. to multiple merchants, including online adult content websites. The ruling was made in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of by Judge David G. Trager. Paycom was represented by Lloyd Constantine's firm, which also represented the merchants in the class action relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc debit. The plaintiff, Paycom Billing Services, Inc. is an aggregator of sales for Internet businesses. Paycom contracts with Internet merchants, most of which, according the court's ruling, provide online digital adult content. Paycom's primary challenge was to MasterCard's chargeback Chargeback The charge a credit card merchant pays to a customer after the customer successfully disputes an item on his or her credit card statement. Notes: Customers dispute charges to their credit card usually when goods or services are not delivered within the system protecting against fraudulent purchases. The court's ruling recognized that Paycom is free to stop accepting MasterCard on behalf of its clients, or to urge its clients' customers to pay with other payment cards. The judge ruled that the plaintiff could not demonstrate that MasterCard's policies harmed competition. "We are pleased that Judge Trager recognized that antitrust laws antitrust laws n. acts adopted by Congress to outlaw or restrict business practices considered to be monopolistic or which restrain interstate commerce. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 declared illegal "every contract, combination.... are designed to protect competition, not individual competitors," Simon said. The plaintiff brought other antitrust claims, which the court dismissed, against additional MasterCard policies: its Competitive Programs Policy (CPP cpp - C preprocessor. ), Cross-Border Acquiring Rules, and Internet Merchant Qualification Mandates. The court ruled that Paycom had no standing to bring antitrust claims relating to any of these policies. Specifically regarding the CPP claim, Judge Trager ruled that in addition to the lack of standing on its antitrust theory, plaintiffs' damages are "highly speculative" because in order to determine plaintiff's damages, a court would first have to determine, for example, how many additional fraudulent transactions on any other payment network would have occurred if the CPP did not exist. This would amount to pure speculation. We agree with the court's decision that determining any damages under this theory would be hopelessly speculative," said Simon. About MasterCard International MasterCard International is a leading global payments solutions company that provides a broad variety of innovative services in support of our global members' credit, deposit access, electronic cash, business-to-business and related payment programs. MasterCard International manages a family of well-known, widely accepted payment cards brands including MasterCard(R), Maestro (1) (Maestro NT) An earlier name for scheduling software for Windows NT from Tivoli Systems, Inc. When IBM acquired Tivoli in 1996, the program was renamed IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler. (R) and Cirrus(R) and serves financial institutions, consumers and businesses in over 210 countries and territories. The MasterCard award-winning Priceless price·less adj. 1. Of inestimable worth; invaluable. 2. Highly amusing, absurd, or odd: a priceless remark. (R) advertising campaign is now seen in 96 countries and in 48 languages, giving the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. For more information go to www.mastercardinternational.com or refer to our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission |
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