Supreme Court Will Hear Appeal on ATM-Fees Case -- WSJ

By Brent Kendall 

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider an appeal by Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and several leading banks that are challenging lawsuits alleging they conspired to set anticompetitive ATM fees.

The case was one of eight new matters the court added to the docket for its next term, a move that will help give the court's coming calendar more heft. The court has been operating with eight members since the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia, leading to a dynamic where it has been slow to take new cases and has shied away from potential blockbusters.

The ATM case involves a challenge to rules on access fees that prevent independent ATM operators from charging lower amounts for banking transactions processed on networks other than Visa and MasterCard.

The plaintiffs -- consumers and operators of independent ATMs, such as those found in bars and convenience stories -- allege banks including Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to the ATM fee rules when Visa and MasterCard were owned as joint ventures by the banks. The bank card associations went public in 2008 and 2006, but the plaintiffs say the substance of the agreed-upon ATM rules remains in place.

A Washington, D.C., appeals court revived the lawsuits last year after a trial judge previously ruled the allegations weren't strong enough to proceed.

MasterCard and Visa said they were pleased that the court agreed to hear the case.

Banks typically offer free ATM withdrawals for their customers, but people who use a machine that isn't associated with their bank may be charged fees by their own institution as well as the company that owns the ATM. The average cost for using an automated teller machine that isn't tied to a customer's bank rose to a record $4.52 per transaction last year, according to data provider Bankrate Inc.

The court issued its last rulings of the 2015-16 term on Monday, and all the cases accepted Tuesday for review will be heard in the term beginning in October. Among the court's actions on Tuesday:

-- The reach of Monday's ruling against Texas rules for abortion clinics was immediately extended, when the court turned away efforts by Mississippi and Wisconsin to reinstate state laws requiring abortion doctors to hold admitting privileges at local hospitals.

-- The justices accepted a case on whether Miami can bring fair-housing lawsuits against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The city alleged the banks engaged in financial crisis-era discriminatory lending that forced minority-owned properties into premature or unnecessary foreclosure.

-- The court will consider the constitutionality of U.S. rules that determine when to grant citizenship to out-of-wedlock children born abroad when one of the parents is a U.S. citizen. Congress has crafted different rules for citizenship in such circumstances, depending on whether the mother or the father is a citizen.

-- It also said it would consider a case in which oil-drilling company Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. alleges Venezuela, under the regime of Hugo Chávez, illegally seized its property and now uses it for the country's state-owned business.

Robin Sidel contributed to this article

Write to Brent Kendall at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 29, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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