WikiLeaks says complaint against Visa, MasterCard sent to EU

WikiLeaks and DataCell, the Icelandic data hosting service provider that handles WikiLeaks' donation collection, on Wednesday said it had sent a complaint to the European Commission against Visa and Mastercard.

Sveinn Andri Sveinsson, an Icelandic Supreme Court lawyer representing DataCell and WikiLeaks in the case, told AFP the complaint had been sent by mail to the European Commission and would be officially filed on Thursday.

Visa Europe and MasterCard Europe are both accused of five violations of European competition rules, including "abuse of dominant position" and "discrimination of customers," according to the 17-page document sent to Brussels and of which AFP obtained a copy.

In December 2010, the two credit card companies imposed a ban on payments to WikiLeaks through DataCell, costing WikiLeaks some 130,000 euros ($182,900) a day in lost donations, according to Sveinsson.

Visa and MasterCard's move, which was imitated by other companies like the online money transfer service company PayPal, came as whistleblower website WikiLeaks began publishing some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables, sparking an international controversy.

"These card companies can't behave like they want to. Because of their huge market share, they are obliged to follow a special competition rules. It's not like they're a little (company) in London that can throw their clients out whenever they want," Sveinsson told AFP.

"The rule of 'I do business with whoever I want', doesn't apply to the card companies because by not doing business with someone they eliminate them from the market," he said, pointing out that Visa and MasterCard together are responsible for 95 percent of European Union credit card payments.