500 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM are violated, the sanctions provided for therein and other administrative and judicial measures applicable to its execution will be applied. IV. REPRESENTATION On 27 July 2016, FOHB represented before CADE a number of conducts that understood as anti-competition, practised by Online Travel Agencies Decolar.com Ltda., Booking.com, Brazil Hotel Booking Services Ltda., Expedia and Brazil Agency of Travel and Tourism Ltda. Its allegations were that such companies would be imposing, on hotels who wished to use their trading platforms (websites), an abusive parity contractual clause, such as the “Most Favoured Nation”, which would be a violation against the economic order6. According to FOHB, such clause would prevent hotels from offering, in their direct sales channels (e.g. website and teleshopping) or even on the online platforms of competing OTAs, rooms for price or sale conditions more advantageous than those offered on the main platforms. V. CADE’S REPORT V.1. The OTA Market and Alleged Practices OTAs serve as online platforms through which hotels offer accommodation to customers around the world, and whose remuneration is usually made through a pre-commissioned and contractually agreed commission on the value of reservations made by the end-users on their platform/website. Parity clauses generally aim to ensure that hotels which offer their lodgings on the online platform of a given OTA do not do so on competitors’ platforms at more advantageous prices or conditions (such as availability and aggregate services). The main justification is the defence against possible opportunistic behaviour (free-riding) since the online platform connects hotels and buyers to carry out advantageous transactions for both, if they can transact outside the platform, the remuneration and the improvement of OTA’s platform will be at risk. 6 Article 36, I and IV, and §3, III, IV and IX, Act No. 12.529/2011.
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