The Justice Department is eager to pursue an antitrust case against card network giant Visa over its debit card practices based on a U.S. filing late last month in federal court.
The U.S. brought the case against Visa in September 2024, arguing that the company has carved out an illegal monopoly in the debit card market. The San Francisco company has denied those allegations.
In a joint filing by the DOJ and Visa last month discussing their views of the case schedule, lawyers for the two sides disagreed over how quickly to pursue discovery for the case and various deadlines in the legal proceedings. While the DOJ sought to adjust a prior schedule by delaying deadlines by four months, Visa pushed for a longer delay.
In making its arguments about the schedule, federal prosecutors underscored the government’s interest in making the case. Because the case was brought by federal prosecutors during the Biden administration, there has been uncertainty over how the Trump administration would pursue the case, given its regulatory pullback in some areas. For instance, it has moved to potentially shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“The United States remains willing to coordinate with the private plaintiffs on discovery matters to the extent such coordination is feasible and practical, but such coordination should not delay this case: the United States has brought this action challenging Visa’s monopolistic conduct on behalf of the American people and has a sovereign interest in moving the matter forward expeditiously,” the Justice Department lawyers, led by Craig Conrath, contended in the filing.
The government suggested that Visa is being slow in producing documents and determining witnesses for the case, delaying a trial as a result. The government’s recommended four-month delay should be more than sufficient to offset time lost due to the federal shutdown and Visa’s business challenges in accessing some data requested by the government, DOJ lawyers argued.
While a trial date hasn’t been set yet for the case unfolding in the U.S. Southern District Court of New York, negotiations over the schedule will influence that date.
“Visa has offered no compelling justification for its proposal that the close of fact discovery be delayed by twice as long as the United States’ proposal, until nearly the end of 2026 — eight months later than the schedule the Parties originally agreed to — which would have a cascading effect on all subsequent deadlines and likely push trial in this matter into late 2027 or even 2028,” the federal prosecutors said in the filing.
Visa’s lawyers, led by attorney Jeremy Barber from the law firm Wilkinson Stekloff, argued for an additional three-month delay, calling the government’s suggested schedule impractical, based on efforts to coordinate the U.S. case proceedings with parallel proceedings in separate matters brought by private plaintiffs against Visa.
“The Government’s proposed schedule makes that coordination a practical impossibility because it would not allow Private Plaintiffs sufficient time to catch up in time to conduct joint depositions,” Visa contended in the filing. “This would create costly inefficiencies and avoidable burden for Visa, and potentially for the Court.”
The two sides suggested they’ll update the court on related issues by Jan. 16 as they await the judge’s decision on the schedule.
