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ARTICLE · 19 AUGUST 2013

OFT Ready To Accept Commitments In On-line Hotel Room Price-Fixing Investigation

Reed Smith (Worldwide)
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The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced1 that it intends to accept commitments from Booking.com, Expedia, InterContinetal Hotels and others, and to close its investigation into online hotel room price fixing without a finding of infringement or imposition of any fine.

United KingdomAntitrust/Competition Law
Edward Miller
Edward Miller
Angela Gregson
Angela Gregson
Marjorie C. Holmes
Marjorie C. Holmes
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The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has announced1 that it intends to accept commitments from Booking.com, Expedia, InterContinetal Hotels and others, and to close its investigation into online hotel room price fixing without a finding of infringement or imposition of any fine.

The OFT suspected that competition in the sale of hotel rooms by online travel agents (OTAs) was being restricted by the following aspects of agency agreements concluded between the hotels and the websites:

  • MFN or rate parity clauses by which the hotels agreed with the websites not to make rooms available more cheaply themselves or via other sellers
  • Preventing the websites from sacrificing commission to give discounts to customers

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