Wal-Mart sues Visa for fixing price of credit card fees

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, and made $4.4bn in profit for the last three months

Giant US retailer Wal-Mart has sued credit card firm Visa for $5bn (£3bn), alleging that Visa worked with large banks to fix the price of transaction fees it charged to Wal-Mart.

The move comes after Wal-Mart opted out of a $5.7bn settlement with Visa and Mastercard in December.

Wal-Mart and other US retailers, such as Target, objected to the terms of that agreement.

Visa had sued Wal-Mart in June 2013 to prevent the firm from filing a lawsuit.

Wal-Mart, which is the world's largest retailer, argues that Visa worked with large banks "to illegally fix the interchange fees and inflate the network fees that Wal-Mart and other merchants pay on Visa charge card transactions".

Those large fees then caused "enormous damage" between 2004 and 2012, the retailer claims.

Wal-Mart is now suing Visa for damages, which it estimates to be over $5bn.

Visa declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed this week in Fayetteville, Arkansas, near Wal-Mart's headquarters.