THE EUROPEAN UNION AND EUROPEAN STATES’ DEVELOPMENTS 491 Under these circumstances, the Austrian Constitutional Court judgement was in favour for the new regulation on online travel agencies, demonstrating a real dialogue between European and Austrian standards. 6. BELGIUM In Belgium, there has also been legislative development towards the prevention of abuse related to the parity clause. On 30 July 2018, the Belgian Parliament61 adopted an Act on the tariff freedom for tourist accommodation operators in contracts, concluding with operators of online booking platforms62, with its most relevant articles being Articles 3 through 6. Articles 3 and 4 are part of a chapter called “scope of application”. The former indicates that the Act is applicable to contracts concluded between the effective accommodation supplier and the operator platform. Furthermore, Article 4 indicates that these rules are applied if the tourist accommodation is in Belgium, whatever the law applicable to the contract between the effective accommodation supplier and the online booking platforms. Following this notion, the two other articles are part of the chapter titled “tariff freedom”. Article 5 designates that the price of renting a tourist accommodation is determined freely by the operator and that they also have the freedom to grant any discount or tariff advantage, of any kind whatsoever. Linked to this factor, Article 6 specifies that any clause of a contract concluded between an operator and a platform operator that is contrary to Article 5 shall be deemed unwritten and void ex officio. This article is relevant because it is the main article which regulates the case, moving away the enforcement of parity clause in contracts between accommodation suppliers and the booking platform in Austria. 7. SWITZERLAND The relation between parity clauses and Switzerland had as its first action a decision produced by the Competition Commission (COMCO). In 19 October 61 In French, Chambre des représentants. 62 Loi relative à la liberté tarifaire des exploitants d’hébergements touristiques dans les contrats conclus avec les opérateurs de plateformes de réservation en ligne, available at http://reflex.raadvst-consetat.be/reflex/pdf/Mbbs/ 2018/08/10/139237.pdf (accessed on 03 March 2019).
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