THE SUPREME COURT CONFIRMED DECISION OF FAS RUSSIA IN THE BOOKING CASE

The court refused the company to review the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court

The Company appealed to the Supreme Court against the earlier court decision, as well as the decisions of the appellate and cassation instances.

In December 2020, FAS Russia recognized the company as violating the antimonopoly legislation*. Booking has abused its dominant position in the market of providing aggregators of information about hotels, hostels and other accommodation facilities.

The company imposed unfavorable terms of contracts on Russian hotels and hostels, according to which they were obliged to provide it and comply with the parity of prices, availability of rooms and conditions in all channels of sales and distribution of their services.

According to FAS Russia, such parity clauses lead to the fact that hotels and other accommodation facilities cannot set the price for their hotel services in other sales channels lower than on the Booking website.

The company's actions limited competition in the market and infringed on the interests of the placement facilities.

Today, the Supreme Court confirmed the legality of the decision and the order of the service. It should be reminded that on April 7, 2022 the company reported on the payment of 1.3 billion rubles to the budget of the Russian Federation.

For reference:

* Paragraph 3 of the Part 1 of the Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition.