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Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
Booking portals such as Booking.com must not forbid their partner hotels to offer rooms cheaper on their own website.
Such a so-called "narrow" best price clause adversely affects the competition, at the same time Booking is not necessarily dependent on it, the cartel panel of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) decided on Tuesday in Karlsruhe.
(Ref. KVR 54/20)
In this context, »narrow« means that the hotels are allowed to offer lower prices on competing portals or in offline sales, for example when guests book directly on the phone or at reception.
However, according to the booking clause, it was not allowed to advertise it on the Internet, for example.
"Wide" clauses that prohibit all cheaper offers have been legally prohibited since 2015.
Booking then switched to the "narrow" clause.
The Bundeskartellamt also prohibited their use at the end of 2015, but the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court overturned this ban in 2019. It has now been restored.
Even after the OLG ruling, Booking continued to waive the clause because the proceedings were still ongoing.
The portal had argued that without “best price” rules, consumers would first research accommodation on its website, but then book the cheaper option directly with the hotel.
The business is threatened.
Investigations by the Federal Cartel Office, however, came to different results.
Sales and market share of the company would not have suffered after the fall of the "wide" best price clause.
In addition, it has been shown that the vast majority of consumers are "true to the location" when making bookings, as the authority puts it.
In other words: in practice, hardly any holidaymaker takes the trouble to compare room prices using different booking channels (a report by the Cartel Office can be found here).
beb / dpa