508 COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM imports the practice of lower prices – or charging lower commissioning fees to accommodation providers. Thus, even if a new entrant adopts an aggressive pricing policy, offering, for instance, a lower commissioning rate for hotels, such a strategy runs against the parity obligation imposed by the big OTAs, making it impossible to transfer this advantage to the final consumer and reducing the impact it could have on the market. On the other hand, the information available supports the hypothesis that parity, in relation to the sites of the lodging providers, may be required to avoid the hitch-hiking effect and possible damages to online lodging agencies. The hotel chain is expected to have greater freedom to negotiate with Online Travel Agencies and offer differentiated prices and conditions depending on the benefits that suit each agency, such as smaller commissions, fostering competition between them, with repercussions on the final price offered to the consumer. Thus, the lower price offered by an OTA concerning hotels is the result of an effective competitive process in which, among other relevant competitive aspects, costs and quality are considered, not merely the imposition of the dominant agents prohibiting the practice of lower prices to competitors. In summary, the proposals comply with the legal, convenience and opportunity requirements, establish conditions that suppress the practice of conduct with supposed anticompetitive effects and penalties for possible non- -compliance and enable an agreed and immediate solution, generating potentially pro-competitive and beneficial effects in the Brazilian market of online tourism agencies. The homologation of the Terms of Commitment to Termination of Conduct occurred on 27 March 2018, therefore, its 3year term of validity will end on 27 March 2021. Until then, the monitoring of the fulfilment of the assumed obligations therein by the OTAs shall be complete. It has already been certified in the process the compliance with the obligation of the OTAs to communicate the hotels on the suppression of absolute parity clauses and to change the contracts so that they provide the clauses of restricted parity in the form assumed in the commitments.
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