Amex seeks monetary damages from Visa/Mastercard

US credit card company American Express (Amex) has filed suit against rivals Visa and Mastercard along with eight major US banks in a Manhattan, NY, district court, Amex representatives and lawyers said during a conference call. American Express is seeking to recover monetary damages from Visa, Mastercard and the eight banks which are members of the Visa/Mastercard card payments network. Amex will claim these organized a boycott against Amex thus limiting competition in the credit card industry. The suit deals with rules that Visa and Mastercard implemented which prevented banks in their networks from issuing Amex credit cards. Other US courts have struck down these rules, and last month the supreme court did not agree to hear Visa and Mastercard's appeal. "Visa will vigorously fight this lawsuit because American Express already got what it wanted from the court. The ability to issue its products through Visa members," Visa said in a statement. "This litigation will not remedy the fact that American Express doesn't have an access problem, they have a product problem," the statement added. Amex representatives did not specify the amount of damages being sought, but confirmed that it was a large amount in the billions of US dollars. The boycott against American Express organized by Visa and Mastercard included 20,000 banks within the US as well as banks located in other countries, the lawyers said.