Legal
Booking’s Curbs on Hotels Charging Less Attacked by EU Court
- Case could have wider ramifications for travel industry
- Judges say such curbs are liable to hurt fair competition
This article is for subscribers only.
Booking Holdings Inc.’s terms preventing hotels from charging less on their own websites risk hurting competition, according to the European Union’s top court.
In a ruling on Thursday, the EU’s Court of Justice said that such terms, as well as now-discontinued curbs preventing lower prices on rival websites, “are liable to reduce competition between the various hotel reservation platforms and carry the risk of ousting small platforms.”