US judge strikes Federal Reserve rule setting 24-cent cap on debit-card transaction fees
Source: Associated Press
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, July 31, 4:19 PM
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has struck down a rule setting a cap on the fees that banks can charge merchants for handling debit card purchases. He said the Federal Reserve didn’t have the authority to set the limit the way it did in 2011, improperly including data that made the cap too high.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on Wednesday handed a victory to a coalition of retail groups — which are seeking a lower cap — and a setback to banks. The retail groups had sued the Fed over its setting the cap at an average of about 24 cents per debit-card transaction.
The previously unregulated “swipe” fee averaged 44 cents. The Fed initially proposed a 12-cent cap, and the retailers had argued that the Fed buckled under pressure from bank lobbyists when it set the cap at double that level.
The Fed now must craft a new rule. The current one will remain in effect in the meantime.
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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-judge-strikes-federal-reserve-rule-setting-24-cent-cap-on-debit-card-transaction-fees/2013/07/31/a1116a34-f9f8-11e2-89f7-8599e3f77a67_story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
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On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon handed the tobacco industry a big victory by blocking a new federal requirement that cigarette packs carry graphic warning labels. Though the ruling may mean illness and premature death for many Americans, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who knew Leon’s history as a partisan activist.
Leon was appointed to his lifetime judicial post by George W. Bush in 2002 after Leon had “earned” the gratitude of the Bush Family by protecting its interests as an aggressive and reliable Republican legal apparatchik on Capitol Hill. There, the heavy-set Leon gained a reputation as a partisan bully who made sure politically charged investigations reached a desired outcome, whatever the facts.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon
In the 1990s, Leon served as special counsel to the House Banking Committee as it transformed President Bill Clinton’s minor Whitewater real estate deal into a major scandal that eventually led to the House vote to impeach Clinton in 1998 and thus set the stage for Bush’s disputed election victory in 2000.
However, Leon’s most important work for the Bushes may have come in the 1980s and early 1990s when he helped construct legal justifications for Republican law-breaking and sought to intimidate Iran-Contra-related witnesses who came forward to expose GOP wrongdoing.
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http://consortiumnews.com/2011/11/09/who-is-judge-richard-leon/
He did order the release of a number of Gitmo prisioners due to lack of evidence.
http://judgepedia.org/index.php/Richard_Leon
