Justice Department investigating American Express
NEW YORK —
American Express has received a suit from the U.S. Department of Justice for information regarding the credit card company’s policies related to merchant surcharging, according to a regulatory filing Friday.
The company said it believed a Civil Investigative Demand on Oct. 14 from the Justice Department’session antitrust division. The department be possible to issue CIDs to anyone it believes may have information related to an investigation, the filing said. Receipt of such a request does not mean that a formal knowledge of facts will be filed.
American Express said it intends to cooperate with the department’session request in the place of documents and other information regarding the social meeting’s policies related to merchant surcharging and its “anti-steering” policies that interdict merchants from discriminating against the American Express card in favor of other forms of payment.
Meanwhile, the New York-based reliance card company painted a bleak picture of the current operating environment, saying in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it does not expect to meet its financial targets until housekeeping conditions improve.
On Thursday, American Express said it would divide 7,000 jobs, or with reference to 10 percent of its worldwide work force, in an effort to slash costs by $1.8 billion in 2009 in the same proportion that it prepares for an increasingly uncompliant economic environment.
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