Illinois Bankers Association, et al, v. Kwame Raoul

  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division
  • Filed
  • Updated

Case Movement

Case Details

  • Case Status: Ongoing
  • Docket Number: 1:24-cv-07307
  • Category: Finance & Credit Cards

Issue

Whether the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act (IFPA) is preempted by federal law.

October 4, 2024

On October 4, 2024, the Restaurant Law Center, together with the Illinois Restaurant Association and the Retail Litigation Center, filed a brief in support of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul arguing that there are currently no federal laws or regulations that govern the cost of credit card transactions within the U.S. payments ecosystem. This regulatory vacuum has enabled card networks to charge U.S. merchants the highest interchange fees in the industrialized world. Thus, IFPA provides needed restrictions in a payment ecosystem that is broken and badly in need of reform.

April 25, 2025

On Friday, April 25, 2025, the Restaurant Law Center, joined by the Illinois Restaurant Association and the Retail Litigation Center, asked the federal court to dismiss the challenge to IFPA. We reiterated our support for IFPA’s laudable attempt to solve a major problem by providing much needed relief from the exorbitant and ever-mounting interchange fees charged by credit card networks in the State of Illinois. As we point out in our filing, issuers’ grievances with IFPA’s relatively modest reduction in interchange fees that would result from excluding the portion of a transaction attributable to taxes and gratuities for sales in Illinois are significantly overstated, and reform to the payment ecosystem is sorely needed.