Mastercard has threatened to pull out of Israel in event that the new cross clearance arrangements agreed by the Antitrust Authority and banks and credit companies, run contrary to its own policy. The company made the threat in a petition that it filed last week with the Restrictive Trade Practices Tribunal.
Mastercard filed a petition demanding that it be consulted over the terms of the new arrangement. Its lawyers, Adv. Eitan Epstein and Tamar Dolev, claimed that the procedure would have a direct impact its brand, intellectual property rights, and business practice. Mastercard claimed that it could be harmed by the arrangement, a development that would have an immediate and tangible impact on overall competition in the sector, and end its activity in the Israeli market as a result.
Mastercard said that if, for example, the parties agreed to give exclusivity to the new joint mechanism, such a move would prevent it from entering the market and competing with other companies, if it so wished in the future.
Mastercard said it insisted on its right to set its own local commission rates, rather than accept the rate set out in the new arrangement.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on December 24, 2006
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