The Chairman of the Office confirmed fine imposed on Booking.com for prohibited vertical agreements preventing competition
For the period from 1 May 2009 to 30 June 2015, Booking.com concluded prohibited vertical agreements with providers of short-term accommodation services within the territory of the Czech Republic, which led to distortion of competition on a service market of mediation of online reservation of short-term accommodation in the Czech Republic and on a market of provision of short-term accommodation services in the Czech Republic. At the same time, the trade between Member States of the European Union concerning providing the services of online reservation of short-term accommodation was potentially affected by conduct of Booking.com. The decision was based inter alia on an extensive investigation, during which the Office addressed hundreds of accommodation facilities.
The anticompetitive conduct of Booking.com consisted in obliging its contractual partners to comply with the so-called broad price and availability parity (MFN clauses). Therefore, the Booking.com should have been granted the same or better conditions regarding the price of accommodation and the amount of available rooms available for booking than those published on the web sites of the accommodation facility or at other on-line of off-line distribution channel of a contractual accommodation facility. The accommodation facilities were limited in their own pricing policy, because under these agreements, they were not allowed to offer better conditions (lower prices, higher availability) then the ones arranged with Booking.com. As a result of this, also none of the competitors of Booking.com could get better conditions from the accommodation facilities. By its conduct, Booking.com prevented competition in the market, which could otherwise lead to better prices and conditions being offered to the consumers looking for short-term accommodation.
Within the appeal proceeding, the Chairman rejected the objections of Booking.com concerning relevant market definition, demonstration of anticompetitive consequences or classification of the conduct under one of the statutory exemptions. The Chairman found the infringement being less serious in type, nevertheless not the minor one, and he confirmed the findings of the first-instance decision including the imposed fine.
Press Unit of the Office
19/093/HS035 – R0219/2018
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