The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday grappled with a North Dakota convenience store's challenge to a contentious debit card "swipe fee" rule set by the U.S. Federal Reserve, with some of the justices appearing split over the case's possible implications, Reuters reported. Arguments in the case focused on whether the store was too late in bringing its 2021 lawsuit challenging a 2011 Federal Reserve regulation governing how much businesses pay to banks when customers use debit cards to make purchases. The store, called Corner Post and located in Watford City, appealed after lower courts threw out the lawsuit on the basis of missing the six-year statute of limitations that generally applies to such litigation. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices and some of its conservatives seemed to differ on the implications of allowing such lawsuits after the six-year deadline. The store argued that it should not be bound by that statute of limitations because it opened for business in 2018, meaning its legal injury arose only after the deadline passed. Swipe fees are determined by Visa, MasterCard and other card networks, with a cap of 21 cents per transaction set under the Fed's 2011 rule.
