Booking’s promises to the Antitrust Authority
About five months ago the AGCM started an investigation against Booking for alleged abuse of a dominant position. The platform, which judges the complaints to be "unfounded", has now proposed some commitments to close the proceedings. All the details
Last March the Competition and Market Authority (Agcm) started an investigation into the alleged abuse of a dominant position against Booking.com International BV, Booking.com BV, Booking.com (Italia) Srl
The online travel booking platform has therefore presented the commitments it intends to make to resolve the issue and the Authority, starting from 14 September 2024, will have to decide whether to accept them or not.
THE AGCM INVESTIGATION
Following reports from Federalberghi (Federation of Italian Hotel and Tourism Associations) and AICA (Italian Confindustria Alberghi Association), the Antitrust started investigation proceedings last March against Booking.com (Italia) Srl, Booking.com BV and Booking.com International BV to ascertain an alleged abuse of a dominant position in the market for online hotel intermediation and booking services, in violation of art. 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU.
ANTI-COMPETITIVE BOOKING PROGRAMS
In particular, according to the Agcm, the strategy implemented by Booking would have consisted in making Italian hotel structures less autonomous in differentiating their rates between booking.com and other online sales channels through participation in certain programs.
These programs are Preferred Partners and Preferred Plus, which offer advantages in terms of visibility in search results in exchange for the payment of higher commissions and the commitment to offer "competitive" prices on booking.com, and the so-called Booking Sponsored Benefit, which allows Booking to apply – without the structure's consent – a discount to align the offer on its platform with the best among those available online.
Therefore, the suspicion is that Booking attempted to exclude other online travel agencies (the so-called OTAs, Online Travel Agencies) from the market of online hotel intermediation services, exploiting its market power over accommodation facilities.
THE LAST STEP BEFORE THE VERDICT
Today, however, the AGCM announced that it had published the commitments presented by the companies, stating that these are "commitments consistent with ensuring that the prices applied by the structures on online sales channels other than booking.com are not taken into consideration in the operation and promotion of the aforementioned programs".
Following the news, Booking.com said: “We have collaborated with the AGCM in Italy and have proposed a series of commitments to address concerns relating to some of our products. We are happy that they plan to test them with the industry. We look forward to reaching a solution that balances the interests of our accommodation partners and offers customers more choice and better prices.”
Any observations on the commitments presented by interested third parties must reach the Authority no later than 13 September 2024. Only at the end of this procedure will the Authority decide whether or not to accept the commitments in question.
BOOKING COMMITMENTS
With regard to the AGCM's complaints (judged "unfounded" by the company), regarding the Preferred Partner and Preferred Partner Plus programs, Booking undertakes not to introduce the obligation to apply the same or higher prices on sites and other platforms. Additionally, hotels will be able to enter and exit programs whenever they wish. Furthermore, the Dutch company will not apply the Booking Sponsored Benefit based on external prices.
The commitments, Booking specifies, will be valid for a period of 10 years. If the authority accepts them, after receiving the observations from the interested third parties, the preliminary investigation procedure will be closed.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/le-promesse-di-booking-allautorita-antitrust/ on Thu, 08 Aug 2024 11:03:19 +0000.