It is with great pleasure to announce that Peter J. Conron has accepted the position of Retail Energy Advisor as part of our commitment to the LiveSmart BC: Small Business Program. In this newly created role, Peter will be responsible for identifying, educating, assessing and coordinating with retailers on the LiveSmart BC: Small Business Program to existing members and the retail community as a whole.

Peter brings with him 20+ years of experience in lighting, electrical and energy industries. He is also a Certified Energy Manager as well as Lighting Certified. Many of the projects he has worked on have been in commercial and retail lighting. Peter truly understands how design and display greatly impact sales and how becoming energy efficient can improve a retailer’s bottom line. Combined with his abilities in sales and account management as well as his entrepreneurial spirit, Peter is an excellent addition to the team.

Fed up with the unpredictable high fees merchants are charged for credit-card transactions, a Vancouver businesswoman has filed a potential class-action lawsuit targeting Visa, MasterCard and major banks.

Vancouver law firms Branch MacMaster LLP and Camp Fiorante Matthews filed a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court Monday on behalf of Mary Watson, owner of Metropolitan Home.

The claim alleges that the credit card companies and banks have engaged in a multi-billion dollar price-fixing conspiracy to increase or maintain the fees paid by merchants on every credit-card transaction.

When a customer pays with a credit card, Visa and MasterCard take a percentage fee, along with the card-issuing bank and the company that processes the payment. Basic cards charge merchants a smaller percentage, while premium cards that offer rewards have a higher fee.

The suit states that in 2009 Canadian merchants paid approximately $5 billion in fees.

The claim alleges that Visa and MasterCard rules force merchants to accept every Visa or MasterCard, even if the cards carry high fees for the merchant. The claim also alleges that these rules prevent merchants from charging more for payments with premium cards.

“All I care about is that all eyes are on them and that there has to be some accountability. People need to be given the proper information,” Watson said in an interview Tuesday. “[Customers] would be appalled if they knew the difference between using one card and another.”

Watson also said she’s frustrated that she can no longer accurately estimate how much her fees will be at the end of each month.

Mark Startup, president and CEO of retail entrepreneur association Shelfspace, said that when higher premium card fees introduced it was very confusing to merchants.

“The costs for retailers to be able to accept credit cards has definitely increased,” he said. “To add insult to injury, the retailer couldn’t decipher from the statements they were getting which cards were attracting these new higher rates.”

Greg McMullen, an associate with Branch MacMaster, said the firm became interested in the issue when the Competition Bureau began investigating whether Visa and MasterCard, by hiking the fees, violated a provision of the Competition Act.

In December, the federal competition watchdog filed an action with many of the same claims contained in the proposed class action, focusing on fees imposed on merchants for every credit-card purchase.

The Competition Tribunal has been asked to issue a prohibition order against the credit card companies that would strike down “restrictive and anti-competitive rules that Visa and MasterCard impose on merchants who accept their credit cards.”

McMullen said the credit-card companies and banks have created a system that traps merchants.

“We’re quite excited by the response,” McMullen said. “When something like that happens you know you have the finger on the pulse of something that’s really bothering a lot of people.”

The next step for the case is a certification hearing. Once a class action is certified, merchants from across Canada can join as plaintiffs.

Other than Visa and MasterCard, the lawsuit names BMO Financial Group, Scotiabank, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Federation des caisses Desjardins du Quebec, Royal Bank, Toronto Dominian Bank, Citigroup Inc., Capital One Financial Corp. and Bank of America Corp.

The claims made in the notice of a civil claim have not been proven in court. 

The British Columbia Utilities Commission has confirmed BC Hydro's negotiated settlement agreement on rates for the fiscal year of 2010 through 2011. The overall bill impact will be a 7.29 per cent increase – down from the original 9.3 per cent interim increase that has been in place since April 2010. BC Hydro is investing more than $6 billion over the next three years to build, upgrade and expand the generation, transmission and distribution system across the province.