In a court filing on Monday, the Minneapolis-based fintech firm alleged that Shopify violated U.S. antitrust law by boosting its own Shop Pay Installments service and suppressing competing “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) services. Shopify did not respond to a request for comment. (The Logic)

Talking point: Ottawa-headquartered Shopify launched Installments for its U.S. merchants in June 2021, adapting a service already offered by Silicon Valley-based Affirm. The feature will become widely available to sellers in Canada and the U.K. this summer. But Sezzle’s suit claims Shopify copied it, then shut out other providers by making Installments the default BNPL service for merchants using its webstore platform and locking clients into contracts that forced them to use it. BNPL fees may not be a huge profit source for Shopify, but Installments is part of its fast-checkout tool Shop Pay, built atop Shopify’s payment processing service, which does generate significant revenue. Sezzle’s share price dropped 7.1 per cent in Tuesday trading, while Shopify’s rose 2.3 per cent; both stocks were up on Wednesday.