FAS RUSSIA RECOGNIZED THE COMPANY BOOKING.COM VIOLATED THE ANTIMONOPOLY LEGISLATION

The company abused its dominant position in the market

On December 21, 2020, the Federal Antimonopoly Service completed consideration of the case on violation of Antimonopoly legislation in relation to the company Booking.com B. V. (hereinafter — Booking.com). According to the results of its consideration, the company was found violated paragraph 3 of part 1 of article 10 of the Law on Pprotection of Competition. A case in relation to Booking.com was initiated on the basis of the appeal of the All-Russian public organization of small and medium business OPORA RUSSIA.

The company has abused its dominant position in the market for providing of information about hotels, hostels and other accommodation facilities by aggregators. Booking.com imposed unfavorable terms of contracts on Russian hotels, according to which they were obliged to provide the company with and comply with the parity of prices, availability of rooms and conditions in all channels of sales and distribution of their services. Such channels are understood as meta-searchers, travel agencies, other aggregators of information, as well as the sites of the hotels themselves and other accommodation facilities.

Thus, parity conditions may result in hotels and other accommodation facilities not being able to set the price of their hotel services in other sales channels lower than on Booking.com. Also, parity may limit hotels in the formation of free offers of services in different sales channels, which differ qualitatively and quantitatively depending on their distribution method.

Specified actions of Booking.com by imposing unfavorable terms of contracts on the placement means lead to a restriction of competition in the market of services of the relevant information aggregators. They also infringe the interests of hotels and other accommodation facilities in the field of business activity.

“Consideration of the case against Booking.com has shown that Russian hotels depend on the company, and any of its actions can have a direct impact on both the commercial activities of hotels and consumers of hotel services. In such a situation, it is important to stop any anti-competitive practices of aggregators that lock groups of consumers in their services and prevent them from obtaining the necessary services from other market participants. Establishing different parities on the part of Booking.com is a prime example of such practices,” Alexey Dotsenko, Deputy Head of the FAS Russia said.

“FAS Russia will issue an order to stop actions that violate the Antimonopoly legislation to Booking.com. In this document the Antimonopoly authority will require the company to exclude from contracts with hotels the conditions of broad and narrow parity, both in relation to prices for hotel services and in relation to the conditions under which these services are provided,” Elena Zayeva, Head of the Department for Regulation of Communications and Information Technologies of the FAS Russia added.

For reference.

Paragraph 3 part 1 article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition prohibits actions (inactions) of dominant economic entity which result or can be the prevention, restriction, elimination of competition and (or) infringement of interests of other persons (economic entities) in business activities or of indefinite range of consumers, including the imposition of the counterparty the terms of the contract, unprofitable for him or not related to the subject of agreement (economically or technologically unjustified and (or) directly not provided by Federal laws, normative legal acts of the President of the Russian Federation, normative legal acts of the Government of the Russian Federation, normative legal acts of the authorized Federal Executive authorities or judicial acts, requirements on transfer of financial funds, other property, including property rights, as well as consent to conclude a contract subject to provisions in respect of the product, in which the counterparty is not interested, and other requirements).