How many lawyers does it take to organise a case? 19 and a couple of judges.

It may sound like a bad joke but Private Bin can promise that there were 19 lawyers sitting in Court Room number 12 at the High Court at Auckland (she counted) – not to mention the lawyers and law clerks camped out in the public gallery.

The lawyers had converged on the court to hear interlocutory applications related to the Commerce Commission case against credit card companies – MasterCard and Visa – and 11 banks and finance companies over alleged price fixing of credit card payment fees.

There is no doubt Visa International, MasterCard International, Cards NZ, ASB, Kiwibank, NZ Post, BNZ, HSBC, Westpac NZ, TSB, ANZ, The Warehouse Financial Services and GE Finance and Insurance all need to have lawyers. The outcome of this case will impact credit card fees and could affect banks’ bottom lines.

But Private Bin just wonders how high the billable hours for the two-day hearing (not even the trial) was going to be. And for that matter whether the huge cost of these lawyers is going to be whacked on her next credit card bill as some unexplained charge.