Court ruling against booking.com

Thanks for posting, very interesting. For those not wanting to go to the link to read what happened, as I understand it, the court ruled against Booking's "parity clauses" which prevent a hotel from offering a lower price on its website. I read it as meaning if you're using a website like Booking.com to search for rooms, always check the location's website to see if they offer better pricing for booking directly.

CTLawGal said:

Thanks for posting, very interesting. For those not wanting to go to the link to read what happened, as I understand it, the court ruled against Booking's "parity clauses" which prevent a hotel from offering a lower price on its website. I read it as meaning if you're using a website like Booking.com to search for rooms, always check the location's website to see if they offer better pricing for booking directly.

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I think this is good news generally, but it might take some time for anything to change. This ruling seems to provide guidance to Rechtbank Amsterdam (Netherlands) on questions that court referred to the CJEU. The CJEU guidance will now have to be applied in the case that led to this request. Reading the text of the judgement, the CJEU guidance on determining where exemptions allowing parity clauses can be used 'requires a concrete examination of the substitutability, from a supply and demand point of view, between online intermediation services and other sales channels' (see here). That requirement might add to any delays as the parties haggle over the conduct of such an investigation!

Someone who has a better understanding of the EU jurisprudence system might be able to better explain where this goes, but at first glance from someone living outside the EU, this could still take some time before we see the behaviour of Booking.com BV and Booking.com (Deutschland) GmbH (the applicants in this case) change.

If the hotels can decide voluntarily to list with booking.com, why can’t booking.com require parity? Each hotel can ensure being able to offer whatever price it wants (as low as if wants) merely by NOT listing with booking.com. It seems that the hotels want the benefit of being able to list/advertise on booking.com, but then want to be able to undercut booking.com in pricing, thus getting advertising for free.