The Spanish Competition Authority could impose a record fine of $530 million on Booking.com over practices deemed anti-competitive.
This sanction follows an investigation launched in 2022. Following complaints from dissatisfied Spanish hotelier associations, the Spanish competition watchdog looked into the pricing conditions that Booking.com imposed on them.
To finally estimate that the American giant was abusing its leading position in the country by requiring it to have the best prices on its platform.
In addition to
“deeply disagreeing”
with the conclusions of the Spanish Authority, Booking.com believes that it is up to Europe to decide this question and not to Spain.
“We will soon report to the European Commission within the framework of the Digital Markets Act
(a big bang for the European internet coming into force in March, Editor's note)
, which aims to ensure coherent regulation of online platforms on a scale of the European Union
, declares its leadership.
We are convinced that this is the right framework to agree on solutions applicable to the whole of Europe rather than country by country.”
The company will appeal the decision of the Spanish Authority.
Which did not prevent the stock from falling on Friday.
In addition to being chilled by the prospect of this fine, investors were disappointed by the forecasts of results for 2024. Those for 2023 were record, boosted by the strong recovery in international travel around the world.
Revenue reached $21.4 billion, up 25%.
As for the net profit, it jumped 40%, to 4.3 billion euros.