Ohio v. American Express Co.

Ohio v. American Express Co.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 26, 2018 Decided June 25, 2018
Full case name	Ohio, et al., Petitioners v. American Express Company, et al.
Docket no.	16-1454
Citations	585 U.S. ___ (more) 138 S. Ct. 2274; 201 L. Ed. 2d 678
Case history
Prior	United States v. Am. Express Co., 88 F. Supp. 3d 143 (E.D.N.Y. 2015); reversed, 838 F.3d 179 (2d Cir. 2016); cert. granted, 138 S. Ct. 355 (2017).
Holding
American Express' steering provisions do not violate federal antitrust law.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Case opinions
Majority	Thomas, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Gorsuch
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan

Ohio v. American Express Co., 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the nature of antitrust law in relationship to two-sided markets. The case specifically involves policies set by some credit card banks that prevented merchants from steering customers to use cards from other issuers with lower transaction fees, forcing merchants to pay higher transaction fees to the banks. While Visa and MasterCard settled with the United States Department of Justice in 2010, American Express defended its practice by arguing that the anti-steering policies benefited its cardholders, the higher transaction fees helping to maintain member services. While the Department of Justice and several states prevailed during a District Court trial in 2015 citing harm to the merchants, the Appeals Court reversed the District Court's ruling in 2016 by ruling that the plaintiffs had not shown harm to both sides of the two-side market, a novel test in antitrust law. This decision led to some of the states to appeal to the Supreme Court. The case was heard by the Court in February 2018.

The Court issued its decision on June 25, 2018, affirming the Appeals Court's ruling that steering provisions do not violate antitrust laws. With this decision upheld, the two-market test could be applied to other venues, particularly to the high tech sector where two-side markets are common.