Hotels throughout Europe are being urged to participate in a class action against Booking.com in order to recover potentially billions of euros in excessive commissions. The initiative is being launched in the Netherlands, where Booking.com is headquartered, and is being coordinated by a Dutch organization known as the Stichting Hotel Claim Alliance.

A pan-European team of lawyers and economists, including Volker Soyez, a partner at the Brussels-based legal firm Schneider Geiwitz & Partner (SGP), is pursuing this action which follows a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in September 2024 regarding a protracted case involving Booking.com and 63 individual German hotels and groups, such as 25hours, Dorint, and Steigenberger.

The case centers on the legality of so-called parity clauses within the agreements between online travel agencies (OTAs) and hoteliers.

When Booking.com entered the German market in 2006, it incorporated what is referred to as a “wide parity” clause in its terms and conditions for hoteliers, which restricted them from offering rates lower than those available on Booking.com through their own sales channels or other OTAs.

In a 2013 case, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office determined that wide parity clauses violated German and European Union cartel laws. In 2015, Booking.com replaced the wide parity clause with a “narrow parity” clause, which forbade hotels from providing lower rates on their own channels. The Federal Cartel Office later ruled that this was also in contravention of German and EU competition law.

The current class action is being backed by the European hospitality association Hotrec.

Visit the claim organization’s website.