Morgan Stanley made the complaint in April 2000, after the Visa International Board rejected its application for membership of the Association, citing a rule that prohibits the Board from accepting for membership any applicant deemed by the Board to be a competitor of Visa.
After a four-year investigation, the Commission yesterday filed a Statement of Objections, the formal document setting out the preliminary findings of its investigation. It stated that, in its view, the membership rule is not applied in an objective and non-discriminatory manner in respect of all applicants for Visa membership.
This means, said the Commission, that competition in the European merchant acquiring markets, which is the least competitive part of the European credit card market, is more restricted than it would be if a potentially powerful new entrant with a pan-European card business strategy was allowed to join.
On the specifics of the complaint, the Commission pointed out that while Morgan Stanley - the owner of the Discover payment card network - was refused Visa membership, the owners of several other payment card schemes have been admitted as Visa members.
This includes Citigroup, owner of the Diners Club network, and Celetem, the operator of the Aurora payment card network.
Visa has failed to explain, said the Commission, why a global network such as Diners Club, which operates in over 200 countries, including Europe, should be less of a threat to Visa than a regional network like Discover, which operates only in the US and does not have any presence in Europe.
The Commission also commented that MasterCard, which is a similar sort of operation, does not have such a rule in its bylaws, and has accepted Morgan Stanley as a MasterCard member.
Speaking to Reuters, David Masters, a Visa International spokesman, explained that as Morgan Stanley was the owner of a rival card network, "any decision that allows them access to proprietary Visa information will inevitably reduce competition between payment systems".
Visa has three months to respond.