358 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM Furthermore, France and Italy, joined by Austria and Belgium, introduced legislations prohibiting all forms of MFN clauses in the online hotel booking sector. France adopted the “loi Macron” for economic growth in August 2015, which renders null and void all parity clauses imposed by Online Travel Agents. Austria and Italy amended their competition rules in November 2016 and August 2017 respectively, banning all the sector’s MFN clauses. On July 2018, Belgium adopted an Act on Pricing Freedom on online hotel booking sector, banning all MFNs as well. MFN clauses recently returned to the antitrust spotlight. On April 2019, advisers were appointed by EU Competition Commissioner Vestager to explore how EU competition policy should evolve in the digital age, reported that, because large platforms have an important advantage, the strict scrutiny of MFN applied by platform businesses is appropriate. On May and June 2019, the Stockholm Patent and Market Court of Appeal and the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court respectively confirmed the lawful usage, by large and combined Online Travel Agents, of narrow MFN clauses that prohibit hotels from offering better rates on their own websites than they do on the platform. On June 2019, the Danish hotel-booking platform Newstay filed a complaint with the EU Commission against Booking.com and Expedia for allegedly enforcing a new type of wide rate parity clauses by imposing penalties on hotels if Newstay, or other platforms, are able to offer more competitive prices for accommodation. Also, on June 2019, the EU Parliament and Council adopted a “P2B” regulation, requiring platforms to justify restrictions imposed on their business users regarding better terms offered elsewhere. Moreover, the European Commission is exploring ways to possibly streamline provisions on MFN clauses, in the context of its review of its VBER10, which exempts vertical agreements that meet specific conditions from the prohibition of anticompetitive agreements. The Competition Council actively brought its contribution to the work of NCAs in that context. Booking.com’s commitments are applicable to Luxembourg since July 2015, for a period of five years11. 10 Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32010R0330&from=EN. 11 Source: https://concurrence.public.lu/fr/actualites/2015/Plateformes-de-reservation-hoteliere.html.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==