Booking.com to remove MFN clauses from contracts with Swedish hotels

Judgment of 20 July 2018 by the Swedish Patent and Market Court

By assistant attorney Kristine Langgaard Stage

European competition authorities focus increasingly on the use by hotel booking platforms of clauses that prevent hotels from offering lower prices on their own website than offered on the platforms (the so-called Most Favoured Nation clauses or MFN clauses). Now, the Swedish Patent and Market Court has also investigated a booking platform and found that Booking.com’s use of MFN clauses in its contracts with Swedish hotels amounts to anti-competitive behaviour contrary to the competition rules.

The Court has therefore allowed Booking.com three months to remove the clauses from all its contracts with Swedish hotels. If Booking.com fails to do so, the parent company and the Swedish subsidiary will face fines of SEK 35 million in aggregate.

Recently, the hotel booking industry and the use of MFN clauses have been the focus of attention of European competition authorities. In the spring of 2018, the Danish competition authorities also initiated an investigation of the industry.

Read more about the competition authorities’ focus on the hotel booking industry in our previous news article:

• The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority focuses its attention on hotel booking platforms