The US Department of Justice is witnessing a victory in a major fintech acquisition that could pave the way for a raft of antitrust enforcement action.
On January 12, according to Queen Telegraph, the Ministry of Justice announced that Visa and Plaid had made the decision to end the planned merger.
Visa originally announced the acquisition about a year ago, and was planning to pay the tech startup $ 5.3 billion.
BLADE is designed to securely connect disparate systems of financial data. In the November complaint, the Ministry of Justice alleged that Visa was using the acquisition to stifle competition.
Today, McCann Delraham of the Department of Justice's antitrust department said: Visa - which has enormous power in online discounting in the United States - has drawn billions of dollars. Of those transactions. Now that Visa has abandoned its anti-competitive merger, Blade and other futuristic fintech innovators are free to develop potential alternatives to Visa online debit services. With increased competition, consumers can expect lower prices and better services.
Technology in general has been at the center of the turbulent discussions of antitrust violations. Shortly before its lawsuit against Visa, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is suing Facebook.
In both cases, governing bodies argue that the platforms have used their access to competitors 'data and the ability to direct buyers' movement to contain the market. But US antitrust predominantly derives from the Sherman Act of 1890, which hardly anticipated that data would become the new oil.
Meanwhile, over the past two decades, major tech platforms have been the most important factor in the US economy, leaving most government officials reluctant to slow down their role.
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This particular mode has come under attack recently, especially since 2016. What we are witnessing now is a major rearmament of the US antitrust apparatus in preparation for a new era.
