The City of Paris demanded a hundred times higher sum from Booking.
The Dutch company, known for its eponymous platform for booking hotel rooms and accommodation online, was fined on Monday € 1.234 million for non-compliance with the tourism code.
A sum that will be paid in full to the administration of the capital.
The Paris court ruled that Booking had "disregarded" certain provisions of the Tourism Code by not transmitting several information to the City of Paris, in particular the number of days during which tourist accommodation was subject to a rental.
The City of Paris, which requested a fine greater than 150 million euros, had taken Booking before the civil justice in January 2021, considering that it had not received the requested information "within the allotted time".
The end of "a period of impunity"
"Booking.com BV demonstrates to have, in a process of compliance, transmitted the requested information", specifies the decision of the court, which considers, however, that the company "delayed" in communicating the data requested by the City of Paris. "Thus, unlike the request presented by the City of Paris which seeks a dissuasive sanction, the fine imposed must be set at a reduced amount", explains the decision. The entire civil fine will be returned to the City of Paris, "in application of the tourism code".
Despite this reduced fine, Ian Brossat, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of housing, said he was "satisfied" and "happy" with the court's decision. “We are finally coming out of a long period of impunity from which these tourist rental platforms have benefited. It is important that the law of the Republic is superior to the law of the market ”, both for Booking and for other companies in the sector, he told Le Parisien. According to the deputy, seven other similar platforms, including TripAdvisor and HomeAway, are in dispute with the City of Paris for the same reasons.
"We are disappointed by the decision (...) relating to the sharing of data between Booking.com and the City of Paris", commented for its part the Dutch company, which indicates working "in close collaboration with the City of Paris since then to to guarantee the quality and effectiveness of the data we share and to ensure that we fully comply with all of our legal obligations in France.
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"In this specific case, the data retroactively required by law did not allow Booking.com to have the time necessary to properly meet the City of Paris' requirements relating to the quality of shared files," Booking said.
“Since then, we have strived to continuously improve the quality of the data transmitted, to the satisfaction of the City of Paris.
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