Visa, Plaid Terminate Merger Pact After U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit

A Visa Inc. credit card is arranged for a photograph in Tiskilwa, Illinois, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018. Visa and Mastercard agreed to pay as much as $6.2 billion to end a long-running price-fixing case brought by merchants over card fees, the largest-ever class action settlement of an antitrust case.

(Bloomberg) -- Visa Inc. agreed to walk away from its proposed $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid Inc. following a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit to stop the deal on antitrust grounds.

“We are confident we would have prevailed in court as Plaid’s capabilities are complementary to Visa’s, not competitive,” Visa Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in a statement Tuesday. “However, it has been a full year since we first announced our intent to acquire Plaid, and protracted and complex litigation will likely take substantial time to fully resolve.”