By MAE ANDERSON

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services behemoth uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

The complaint filed Tuesday says Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network.

According to the DOJ’s complaint, 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions.

“We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing – but the price of nearly everything.”

The Biden administration has aggressively gone after U.S. companies that it says act like middlemen, such as Ticketmaster parent Live Nation and the real estate software company RealPage, accusing them of burdening Americans with nonsensical fees and anticompetitive behavior. The administration has also brought charges of monopolistic behavior against technology giants such as Apple and Google.

According to the DOJ complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Visa leverages the vast number of transactions on its network to impose volume commitments on merchants and their banks, as well as on financial institutions that issue debit cards. That makes it difficult for merchants to use alternatives, such as lower-cost or smaller payment processors, instead of Visa’s payment processing technology, without incurring what DOJ described as “disloyalty penalties” from Visa.

The DOJ said Visa also stifled competition by paying to enter into partnership agreements with potential competitors.

In 2020, the DOJ sued to block the company’s $5.3 billion purchase of financial technology startup Plaid, calling it a monopolistic takeover of a potential competitor to Visa’s ubiquitous payments network. That acquisition was eventually later called off.

Visa previously disclosed the Justice Department was investigating the company in 2021, saying in a regulatory filing it was cooperating with a DOJ investigation into its debit practices.

Since the pandemic, more consumers globally have been shopping online for goods and services, which has translated into more revenue for Visa in the form of fees. Even traditionally cash-heavy businesses like bars, barbers and coffee shops have started accepting credit or debit cards as a form of payment, often via smartphones.

KBW analyst Sanjay Sahrani said in a note to investors that he estimates that U.S. debit revenue is likely at most about 10% of Visa revenue.

“Some subset of that may be lost if there is a financial impact,” he said. Visa’s “U.S. consumer payments business is the slowest growing piece of the aggregate business, and to the extent its contribution is affected, it is likely to have a very limited impact on revenue growth.”

He added the lawsuit could stretch out for years if it isn’t settled and goes to trial.

Visa processed $3.325 trillion in transactions on its network during the quarter ended June 30, up 7.4% from a year earlier. U.S. payments grew by 5.1%, which is faster than U.S. economic growth.

Visa, based in San Francisco, did not immediately have a comment. Visa shares fell $13.53, or 4.7%, to $275.10 in afternoon trading.

When people called 911 about an altercation in a parking lot behind a Falcon Heights business, dispatchers told Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies a man trying to break a vehicle’s windows was African American, in his late 30s, wearing a black shirt and black pants, and a hat.

The man who a responding deputy pushed against a wall, causing him to lose consciousness, was a 67-year-old Black man. He was wearing a brown windbreaker that was “open such that his white shirt was quite visible” and he had no hat, according to the man’s lawsuit.

The deputy “decided (the man) met the description of the suspect he was looking for, despite the significant and obvious differences in age and dress as described by the 911 dispatcher. Further, none of the callers described the man in the altercation as using a walker,” which Michael Torrey-White does, said his lawsuit filed in federal court.

The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners approved $75,000 Tuesday to settle Torrey-White’s lawsuit.

“It’s a very unfortunate set of circumstances and we’re glad to put it behind us,” Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Dave Metusalem said after the meeting.

The sheriff’s office did not find misconduct on the part of the deputies, according to Metusalem. In settling the lawsuit, Ramsey County and the deputies involved “deny any liability whatsoever,” the settlement agreement said.

Man wasn’t wearing hearing aids during encounter

Filed in federal court in October 2022, the lawsuit’s claims included excessive force. Torrey-White’s attorney, Paul Bosman, gave this information in the lawsuit’s complaint:

Multiple people called 911 on Feb. 28, 2020, to report a man trying to break out a vehicle’s windows and the driver attempting to hit the man with her vehicle. It was in a parking lot behind the Pizza Hut at Larpenteur and Snelling avenues in Falcon Heights.

Torrey-White lived in an apartment complex near the parking lot, as did his adult daughter. They both had windows facing the parking lot where the incident happened.

His daughter called 911 because she saw a man “dodging a vehicle in the parking lot” and then “observed tire tracks from the vehicle very near her parked truck,” the complaint said. She asked her father to check on her parked truck.

Torrey-White, who has significant hearing loss, left his apartment without his hearing aids. He checked the tire tracks and his daughter’s truck and started walking back to his apartment.

“He suddenly felt a hand on his right arm from behind, which startled him” and Deputy Kyle Williams pushed Torrey-White into a brick wall, hitting his head and back against it, the lawsuit said.

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Torrey-White regained consciousness and found himself on the ground in handcuffs. He asked what he’d done wrong and Williams told him to “Shut up,” the lawsuit said. Torrey-White screamed for his daughter, who came outside.

A summary prepared by the county for the board said Torrey-White “refused to speak with the deputy and turned away from Deputy Williams placing his hand in his pocket. This caused Deputy Williams to place his hand on (Torrey-White), out of caution of not knowing what could be in (his) pocket, to conduct a pat down.”

“(Torrey-White) jerks away from the deputy,” the county’s summary said. “After a controlled takedown, handcuffs were placed on (Torrey-White). After additional facts were discovered, it became evident to Deputy Williams that (Torrey-White) was not the individual involved in the domestic disturbance” they were originally called about.

Attorney: ‘Trying to find some justice’

Torrey-White’s lawsuit said that he “attempted to explain to … Williams that the man he was looking for was coming around the corner from the restaurant in the complex.”

Williams put pressure on Torrey-White’s back, and Torrey-White complained he was having difficulty breathing, the lawsuit said.

Three other deputies arrived and informed Torrey-White he was being detained. They did not “attempt to stop … Williams from engaging in excessive force,” the lawsuit continued.

“Despite a lack of probable cause to believe Mr. Torrey-White had a weapon,” a female deputy touched the front of Torrey-White’s pants, in his genitalia area, which he verbally objected to, according to the lawsuit.

Williams also searched Torrey-White’s pockets and the pouch of his walker, scattering his belongings on the ground. One of the deputies eventually removed the handcuffs from Torrey-White and released him.

Torrey-White told the deputies he was planning to file a complaint, and he did so the next day.

The lawsuit said “Williams later falsified his police report,” which caused Torrey-White to be charged with obstructing legal process and disorderly conduct. The county’s attorneys denied that the police report was falsified.

Torrey-White obtained an attorney, who requested body-worn camera footage and a judge also ordered the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office to provide it.

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During Torrey-White’s trial in July 2022, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office didn’t appear and didn’t provide the body-camera footage and the charges against Torrey-White were dismissed.

After the incident, Torrey-White was treated for head and back injuries; a prior neck injury was exacerbated. He received services for post-traumatic stress disorder “as a result of the abuse he experienced” at the deputy’s hands, the lawsuit said.

Bosman, Torrey-White’s attorney, said Tuesday that his client “is looking forward to going back to his normal life, as much as that is possible after his encounter with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department. … He’s ready to be done with this four-year long process of trying to find some justice.”

It’s great to have a defensive identity, particularly in the playoffs. You want to have a controllable factor you can hang your hat on when the pressure and competition mounts. The Lynx have established that foundation upon which they can lean this postseason.

But sometimes opponents are simply going to make shots. In Game 1 of the WNBA playoffs on Sunday, Phoenix hit 52 percent of its triple tries as Diana Taurasi, Natasha Cloud and Kaleah Copper each pulled out their personal flamethrowers to shoot the Mercury back into a game it looked as though Minnesota won in the first half at Target Center.

Once talented players heat up, dousing them can be a nearly impossible task. So, there are times in a series when you simply may have to answer back on the offensive end.

And, as the Lynx proved again down the stretch Sunday, they’re more than capable this season of fighting fire with fire.

Minnesota scored on 10 of its final 12 possessions over the final 6-plus minutes of Sunday’s game to stave off the Mercury and close out the Lynx’s 102-95 victory.

During the stretch of offensive success, the Lynx utilized Napheesa Collier’s excellence, a bevy of pick-and-roll actions, a tough shot from Bridget Carleton and some timely free-throw shooting. But it all centered on one key factor: Spacing.

Certainly in past seasons, Minnesota’s lack of a floor general was glaring. It always seemed like that was the missing link amid the Lynx’s offensive struggles. And Courtney Williams’ playmaking has aided in the team’s efforts. The Lynx led the WNBA in assists per game this season (23), up from 19.4 in 2023.

“We just play so well together,” Collier said. “We have so many assists on all of our baskets, and I got a lot of easy shots (Sunday) because of our unselfishness on our team.”

But it’s also easier to playmake when there’s room to operate. And Minnesota’s shooting has given it plenty of that.

The Lynx saw a dramatic increase in 3-point shot attempts this season — up to 25 from 20.8 a year ago — with hyper efficiency. Minnesota knocked down 38 percent of those shots, the highest hit rate on deep balls across the league in a non-bubble WBA season since 2012, when the Lynx and Fever both shot 40 percent from deep (on fewer attempts) en route to meeting one another in the Finals.

The Lynx looked like they would be about the least likely candidate to take charge of the revolution from beyond the arc. But Carleton’s evolution to a starter who is leaned upon for heavy minutes means Minnesota usually has two, high-volume sharpshooters sharing the floor in Carleton and Kayla McBride. And everyone else is willing to let it fly when the opportunity arises, from the bigs in Collier and Alanna Smith to the other guards like Williams and Natisha Hiedeman. Everyone is presented as a shooting threat.

Which means opposing defenses are not packing the paint or freely doubling onto Collier without at least a moment of hesitation. Because if that double team, or even split second of extra attention hits, Collier will hit an open Carleton for a big triple, such as the one that beat Connecticut last week at the end of regulation to secure the No. 2 seed.

And if you can’t double Collier, she will dominate, as one of the WNBA’s top talents is wont to do. The All-WNBA forward, who scored 38 points Sunday and finished as the runner-up in the MVP race, operating in space presents one of the toughest matchups a defense can face.

And she’s not the only one taking advantage. Williams flawlessly executed a few key pick and rolls down the stretch Sunday — both in the middle of the floor and on an empty-side action that led to an easy bucket for Collier — which the Mercury tried and failed to guard with two defenders, likely in fear of getting burned by the kickout triple.

Against Minnesota, defenses now must pick the poison by which they choose to die. Sure enough, now down 1-0 in the best-of-3-games series after the Lynx’s net-scorching finish on Sunday, Phoenix’s season is indeed on life support.

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