Here’s The Legal Complaint WikiLeaks Is Threatening To File Against Visa, MasterCard
More than six months have passed since Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and others cut WikiLeaks’ purse strings. And if that blockade lasts six more days, the secret-spilling group plans to take its financial fight to the courtroom.
If Visa Europe and MasterCard Europe haven’t re-opened payment WikiLeaks by next Thursday, the group and its payment provider DataCell plan to file a complaint with the E.U. Commission against the two companies as well as the Danish payment processor Teller, according to Sveinn Andri Sveinsson, the Icelandic lawyer for WikiLeaks and DataCell.
“They’re boycotting Datacell and Wikileaks without any objective justification,” says Sveinsson. “This is clearly an abuse of their market dominance.”
According to Sveinsson, the following complaint was sent to the two companies earlier this month, and will be filed with the E.U. Commission at an appointment Thursday if the situation isn’t resolved by then.
The complaint argues that the three payment firms have violated Articles 101 and 102 of the E.U. Treaty, which deal with competition among businesses and forbid the creation of anti-competitive cartels. Article 101 prevents firms from creating partnerships for the purposes of price fixing, and Article 102 forbids firms in a “dominant position” from abusing that position.
Both Visa and MasterCard have claimed that payments to WikiLeaks and DataCell were suspended because they potentially violate the companies’ terms of service. MasterCard has gone as far explaining that it prohibits “customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal.” Visa has stated that it is investigating “the nature of [WikiLeaks] business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules.”
A Visa spokesperson told me earlier this month that the company would “respond in due course” to WikiLeaks’ threat of legal action. I’ve put out requests to both companies for further comment but haven’t yet heard back.
Teller has already completed an investigation into WikiLeaks’ legality, and in January stated in a report to Visa that it could find no proof that WikiLeaks had broken any laws.
WikiLeaks’ and DataCell’s complaint makes no specific claims of monetary damages. But a video released by WikiLeaks earlier this week implied that the termination of credit card payments to WikiLeaks has cost it $15 million.
Here’s the clip:
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