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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (20650)	6/12/2000 11:54:00 AM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 769670

Guess it won't 'till at least January. New offensive ( and I do mean offensive) this morning on Visa/Mastercard: JUNE 12, 01:09 EDT Feds Target Credit Card Industry By EILEEN ALT POWELL AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Fresh from winning its antitrust case against Microsoft, the government is taking on the credit card industry. The Justice Department on Monday opens arguments in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in a trial that could force major changes in the way the Visa and MasterCard networks operate. ``This case could have the same significance for the issuance of credit cards that the Microsoft case has for the computer industry,'' said New York antitrust lawyer Harry S. Davis. The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in October 1998, alleging that Visa USA and MasterCard International Inc. violated antitrust law by limiting competition. The two companies currently control about 75 percent of the credit card market in the United States. American Express, which issues Amex and Optima credit cards, has about a 17 percent share, with Discover and other cards holding the balance. The lawsuit charged that the same group of banks control both Visa and MasterCard, lessening competition between the two networks. And it said rules adopted by both credit card associations restrict the ability of banks to do business with other card networks such as American Express and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co.'s Discover card. wire.ap.org Not really. This kind of attack has to stop. JLA