U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington rejected the debit-card cap set by Durbin Amendment and sided with retailers who thought the fees were too high.
The National Retail Federation, the Food Marketing Institute, and the National Association of Convenience Stores filed a suit complaining the fees set by the Durbin Amendment were too high. Oil Miller Co., a residential heating and air conditioning company based in Norfolk, Virginia, and Boscov’s Department Store LLC, based in Reading, Pennsylvania, also joined the complaint.
Retailers are obviously elated with this ruling. The plaintiffs argued that the Fed over reached by setting the debit interchange caps at 0.05% + $0.21, and that this price didn’t correspond to the “reasonable and proportional” guidelines mandated by Congress. Now, the Fed will have to go back to the drawing board and review pricing for regulated debit cards.
