488 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM 3. FRANCE The development of the juridical aspects of the OTA parity clauses in France are different in relation to Germany. The first important movement occurred in April 2015 when legislative referenced Articles L. 464-2 and R. 464-2 of the Commercial Code, and Booking.com committed to the French Competition Authority39, changing its wide parity clause to narrow parity clause40 in order to avoid the beginning of an administrative processing. This commitment is based on a list of aspects to be respected by Booking.com from that moment (tariff and condition parity, availability parity, equivalent measures are some of these aspects indicated in the decision). On 6 August 2015, Act no. 2015-990 was approved, in respect to growth, activity and legality of economic opportunities, also known as Loi Macron41. In this Act, Article 133 modified the Tourism Code by adding subsection 2 (relations between hoteliers and online booking platforms) in section 1 (contracts relating to the hotel industry), of chapter I, of Title I of Book III. This subsection regulates the relations between hoteliers and online booking platforms in Articles L. 311-5-1 through L. 3115-4)42. These articles establish that the contract between hoteliers and natural or legal persons operating an online booking platform is based on mandate contract and the hotelier holds the capacity to consent to the customer any discount or tariff advantages, considering any clause in opposition to this idea as unwritten43. The mandate contract must indicate the condition of mandatory remuneration being freely determined between the hotelier and the online booking platform, as well as the prices of room booking and other services44. In the event the rules mentioned in the Article L. 311.5.1 are not respected, the platform legal representative may be punished in an amount of 30,000 €, which can be increased to 150,000 € if the representative is a legal person. In a similar fashion, the platform’s legal representative may be sanctioned in an amount of 7,500 € and up to 30,000 € if Article L. 311.5.2 is not respected45. 39 In French, Autorité de la Concurrence. 40 Decision no. 15D06, of 21 April 2015, availableat http://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/pdf/avis/15d06.pdf. 41 Available at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/loi/2015/8/6/2015-990/jo/texte. 42 On an overview French rules on parity clause and competition policy related to tourism, vid. BRETON, Jean-Marie. Droit et politique du tourisme. Paris: Juris Éditions, 2016, pp. 173-175. 43 Art. L. 311-5-1. 44 Art. L. 311-5-2. 45 Art. L. 311-5-3.
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