Hibapress
Dutch hotel booking company Booking.com has been fined €413 million by Spain’s competition watchdog for “abusing its dominant position” to the detriment of Spanish hotels.
Booking “has committed two cases of abuse of a dominant position since at least January 1, 2019 by imposing a number of unfair commercial conditions on hotels located in Spain that use its services,” the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) said in a statement on Tuesday.
The platform prevented “competition from other online travel agencies” as intermediaries “for booking hotels in the country”, which constitutes an infringement of European law, it added, noting that the organization imposed two fines of 206.6 million euros each, one for the unfair conditions imposed on hotels, and the other for the restrictions on other travel agencies.
The Spanish competition watchdog said it had accompanied this fine with “a certain number of obligations” to ensure that these practices “do not continue” “in the future”.
The Dutch hotel booking platform itself announced the opening of this investigation in February, two weeks before the entry into force of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA).
She then specified that she would “appeal this decision” if it was confirmed, questioning the legitimacy of the CNMC in imposing this fine, in light of the rules of the DMA, which apply at European level.
