Cartels Practice Guide 2021 - Anti-trust/Competition Law mondaq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mondaq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Introduction
The Payment Services Regulator (PSR) issued its first decision enforcing competition law in the payments sector on 31st March 2021. The PSR is a concurrent competition regulator for the payments sector along with the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). This is the first time the PSR it has used its competition powers since it became a concurrent competition regulator in 2015.
The PSR provisionally decided that five parties were guilty of taking part in a cartel in relation to pre-paid cards used by local authorities to distribute welfare payments to vulnerable members of society, such as the homeless, victims of domestic violence and asylum seekers contrary to Chapter I of Competition Act 1998. The PSR alleged that Mastercard, allpay, APS, PFS and Sulion all engaged in anti-competitive behaviour by agreeing not to compete or poach each other’s clients.