by. David Morrison

In a surprise move, attorneys for the Federal Reserve and the merchant coalition which had brought suit told U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon on Wednesday that they would jointly request an expedited appeal of his ruling on debit interchange.

Leon had issued a ruling on July 31 that overturned the portion of the Federal Reserve’s debit interchange rule that established a debit interchange cap for large asset debit issuers and its network competition provisions.

Federal Reserve General Counsel Scott Alvarez told Leon that the Fed would file a notice of appeal on Wednesday and, in a particularly surprising move, also told him that the merchants who won the July 31 decision would join the Fed in asking for an expedited appeal of his decision.

“They don’t do many expedited appeals over there,” said Leon, interrupting Alvarez and referring to the U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals which would hear the case.

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