Mastercard received a $648-million (€570-million) fine from the European Commission for rules that precluded merchants from obtaining lower prices on cross-border card acquiring within the 30 countries of the European Economic Area (EEA). Acquirers were obligated to apply the interchange fee of the country where the transaction occurred. This denied merchants the benefit of giving their business to an acquirer based in an EEA country with lower interchange fees. The commission said that the Mastercard rules harmed consumers and merchants by raising the cost of card payments. After coopera...