[20171113]LSB10027_双边信用卡市场：最高法院受理新的反垄断问题.pdf

CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Two-Sided Credit Card Markets: The Supreme Court Takes Up Novel Antitrust Issue Updated November 13, 2017 The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Ohio v. American Express, an antitrust case brought by a number of states against the credit card giant that poses the question of how federal antitrust law should treat two-sided markets. (As discussed in more detail below, two-sided markets are platforms in which two distinct user groups operate in an interdependent way.) The states are challenging “anti-steering” provisions in American Expresss contracts with its merchants, provisions that generally prevent the merchants from encouraging customers to use other credit cards. American Express is important not only for the practices of the $2.4 trillion credit card industrywith the case having the potential to change the way vendors accept card payments across the countrybut the case also provides the Supreme Court with the opportunity to guide the lower courts that are increasingly confronting antitrust issues concerning two-sided markets. As a result, American Express raises several issues for Congres