The Durbin interchange fee caps are going to get tossed by the courts says famed legal scholar and advocate Richard Epstein in an exclusive PYMNTS.com video interview. He’s got a dog in the hunt though as one of the lawyers behind the bombshell complaint that TCF filed in Federal District Court in South Dakota on Wednesday.
One of TCF’s key arguments is that the Durbin fee caps result in an illegal confiscation of property because they don’t allow banks like TCF to earn back their costs let alone earn a reasonable profits. That’s a subject Epstein knows well. This New York University and University of Chicago law professor is the author of the classic Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain.
MPD Founder David Evans, an economist who has worked on interchange fee regulation in serveral countries and published extensively on the topic, sat down virtually with Epstein to hear more about what mid-size bank TCF is claiming, what it hopes to achieve, and why it is leading the charge against Durbin. If you don’t want to look at this duo you can go straight to the transcript here.
TCF Bank Files Lawsuit Challenging The Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Act
The Economics of Payment Card Interchange Fees and the Limits of Regulation
Tick Tock Goes the Durbin Clock- Eight Months to go on Debit Card Regulation
Dealing with Durbin Briefing Room