This is good news, since we now own thousands of ATM machines...
Filed at 8:25 p.m. ET
By Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal appeals court Friday upheld a preliminary injunction which has blocked new California laws designed to stop banks from charging non-customers extra ATM fees for using their cash machines.
In a unanimous decision, the three judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker did not abuse his discretion last November when he ordered laws in San Francisco and Santa Monica, Calif., stopped.
Although they had the opportunity to do so, the appeals court justices opted not to rule on the case as a whole, preferring instead to refer it back to Walker's court for a full trial. A date for that has not yet been set.
San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne said the city welcomed the opportunity to make its case against extra ATM fees in court.
``We think federal law gives local voters the right to say that banks can't provide one service and charge customers twice for it,' Renne said.
A spokesman for the California Bankers Association, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the banks were confident they would prevail in court.
``Obviously, we're delighted with the ruling,' Chris Chenoweth said. ``The court has taken the appropriate step.'
San Francisco voters approved a new law last November that barred banks from ``double dipping' by charging two fees -- one by the consumer's own bank and one by the bank that owns the ATM -- for non-customer cash machine transactions.
That ban, which had been due to go into effect in December, mirrored a measure passed earlier by the Santa Monica City Council.
Bank of America and Wells Fargo, two of California's largest banks, reacted by announcing that if the laws were allowed to stand they would restrict their large ATM networks to their own customers.
Walker, in issuing the preliminary injunction, said the banks were likely to prevail with their legal argument that federally chartered banks should not be subject to local ordinances. |
