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One of the under appreciated legal precedents set a couple years ago was the Ohio V AmEx anti trust case. The case predicated against AmEx’s merchant contract f
by treyfitty 5y ago
One of the under appreciated legal precedents set a couple years ago was the Ohio V AmEx anti trust case. The case predicated against AmEx’s merchant contract forbidding merchants to steer customers away from using their Amex card. This was a common practice for many years, especially at restaurants since AmEx charged restaurants 6%.
The Supreme Court ruled that amex was able to keep the anti-steering provision in merchant contracts because they defined credit cards as a two sided market, and the harm to customers couldn’t be proven. In essence, the Supreme Court set a precedent that in any 2 sided market, in order for something to be considered anti competitive, a high bar needed to be met: the government must show that both sides of a 2 sided market be harmed in order for something to be anti competitive.
Had the ruling been the other way, almost every industry would have been impacted- Uber, App Stores, Advertising…etc are all 2 sided markets.
In essence, Credit cards have had a huge impact to our lives this century for reasons that are not appreciated enough.
- airstrike 5y agoI suppose you can multiply that effect by some unknown but really large number and you'll arrive at the total impact caused by favoring Common Law over Civil Law
- throwawaycities 5y agoWhat does that even mean? Credit card companies exist (and make money) in both common law and civil law countries. Or you could even look within the US and examine the singular state that is a civil law jurisdiction and there is no real impact vs the other 49 states. In fact I’d wager a guess very few people even know 1 of the states is a civil law jurisdiction because it has very little impact in practice.
- smnrchrds 5y agoCourt decisions in common law jurisdictions have important and long-lasting effects, not only on the case at hand, but for decades (or centuries) to come on things you wouldn't think can be remotely related to the case. It's not like that in civil law jurisdictions. Had this case been in France, the decision on credit card would not have created a precedent that Uber and AirBnB and App Store could use to their advantage, because the concept of precedent does not exist in the same manner in France. And Louisiana and Quebec are not civil law jurisdiction, they are mixed systems because they are still subject to federal laws and supreme courts, so they have civil and common law both.
- dantheman 5y agoIf it's a problem then it can be fixed through legislation, no need to change what's been litigated.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwawaycities 5y agoI know the difference between common law and civil law. I just didn’t understand: > “multiply that effect by some unknown but really large number and you'll arrive at the total impact” There are countless comparative law articles on civil/common law systems, it’s not exactly clear this “impact” you’re trying to measure. I suppose you could try to determine the number of codified laws in a civil law jurisdiction vs the number of original cases cited in published opinions in a common law country. But even with a total number of cases that relied on stare decisis in rulings, I just don’t know what impact that reveals.
- nikitaga 5y agoThis has nothing to do with credit cards and everything to do with the kind of people ruling this country, and the kind of systems we have to keep "electing" them. If that case wasn't about AmEx, it would have been about some other random oligopolist, with the same outcome.
- SturgeonsLaw 5y agoIt's at the point where I'm genuinely surprised to legislation that provides benefits to the consumer. On the rare occasions that it does appear, the first thing I wonder is "what's the angle".
- dd36 5y agoI don’t think the FCRA could come into existence today. It’s crazy that Republicans used to create pro-consumer regulations. We’re so far from that these days that it feels impossible absent some major shock like the CFPB after 2008.
- xxpor 5y agoAnd look at how the CFPB is treated!
- teen 5y agoI guess it has to be both unprofitable and universally agreed upon
- apahwa 5y agowhy is electing in quotes?
- nikitaga 5y agoBecause US election system does not reflect the will of the population, or even the voting population. FPTP is a highly deficient system that results in the same two parties staying in power indefinitely, which is only marginally better than a single party state. So, I find it hard to blame the population for the politicians they elect in this case. US elections are a lot more constrained by the ruling class and the laws passed by said ruling class than in many European countries for example. USSR had elections too, you know. Doesn't mean there was any freedom or democracy.
- xmprt 5y agoI had to take a few minutes to understand this case. So essentially, merchants who were already accepting Amex cards couldn't tell their customers to use a Visa card instead if they had one. If a merchant didn't want to accept Amex cards then they shouldn't have partnered with Amex.
- dan-robertson 5y agoMerchant’s can’t do it because the contract they have with Amex says they can’t. The case said that Amex were allowed to have such terms in their contact (ie that it’s not anticompetitive to have them)
- causi 5y agoSounds like a bad thing to me. Why not offer the service to retailers for free and then make your money by charging interest on unpaid customer debt? Making retailers cover the operating costs of your moneylending business just seems like bullying.
- Smashure 5y agoIsn’t Amex a no interest, pay in full every month type of CC? Or am I thinking of something else?
- dan-robertson 5y agoI think Amex offers that as well as actual credit cards.
- adeelk93 5y agoThe word you’re both looking for is “charge card”
- madeofpalk 5y agoThe funny part about Ohio v Amex is the same lawyers who defending Amex and the anti-steering measure are now on the other side in the Epic vs Apple case. Cravath, Swaine & Moore was the law firm defending Amex and the anti-steering measures, and now they're Epic Games' lawyers attacking anti-steering measures.
- Dwolb 5y agoI’d wager that on average lawyers aren’t on any specific side.
- madeofpalk 5y agoI believe it. Just mildly humorous to me.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Cravath, Swaine & Moore That looks familiar... I could swear I've seen that on GrokLaw, but of course it's been so long I can't for the life of me remember which side they were on -- or even which case.