A group action accusing Visa and Mastercard of unlawfully inflating the fees merchants pay to accept card payments has been placed on hold by the Competition Appeal Tribunal, only weeks after it was filed. The claim, led by poultry producer Moy Park Limited and joined by 21 other UK corporate claimants, was lodged on 26 June 2026 and stayed by tribunal order on 20 July 2026. The pause underlines how heavily the sprawling landscape of UK interchange-fee litigation now depends on a handful of appellate decisions still working their way through the courts.
What the claimants allege
The proceedings, brought under section 47A of the Competition Act 1998, contend that Visa and Mastercard operated network rules that unlawfully restricted competition. The claimants focus on commercial-card multilateral interchange fees and cross-border acquiring rules, arguing that these arrangements pushed up the merchant service charges levied on businesses that accept card payments. The alleged result is a period of overcharging, or lost profits, for which the group seeks damages running from 1 May 2020 until judgment or until the conduct is said to cease, together with interest, costs and further relief.
The claimant group spans several consumer-facing sectors. Alongside Moy Park and fellow meat processor Pilgrim's Pride Limited sit online fashion retailer ASOS Payments UK Limited, childcare operator Busy Bees Nurseries Limited, travel businesses TUI UK Retail Limited, TUI Airways Limited and Marella Cruises Ltd, and textiles firm Liberty Fabric Limited. The claimants are represented by Harcus Parker Limited.
Why the tribunal pressed pause
Rather than letting the new action run in parallel, the tribunal, chaired by Ben Tidswell, tied its progress to separate collective proceedings brought by Commercial and Interregional Card Claims I Limited (case numbers 1441/7/7/22 and 1443/7/7/22). Those proceedings await the Court of Appeal's decision on whether permission to appeal should be granted against the Opt-In Application Judgment, reported as [2026] CAT 15. An application concerning that judgment was made on 13 May 2026.
Under the order, the Moy Park claim is to remain stayed until 30 days after the related appeal is finally determined. Staying proceedings in this way is a common case-management tool: it avoids duplicated argument and inconsistent findings while a higher court settles a question likely to shape numerous downstream claims.
Part of a wider wave of litigation
The dispute sits within long-running UK and European scrutiny of the interchange fees embedded in card transactions, an area that has generated years of merchant claims and collective actions against the two card schemes. Whether commercial-card interchange and cross-border acquiring rules breached competition law, and how any resulting overcharge should be measured, remain contested questions that appellate courts are still refining.
Implications for merchants and in-house counsel
For businesses weighing their own recovery, the stay is a reminder that timing in this field is often dictated by test cases rather than the merits of an individual claim. In-house legal teams monitoring exposure to card-scheme fees may find that filing preserves a position without guaranteeing swift progress, as tribunals increasingly sequence overlapping actions behind lead appeals. The eventual Court of Appeal ruling on the opt-in question could influence procedure and strategy across a large body of pending interchange-fee litigation, making it a decision worth watching well beyond the immediate parties.
