Helen Gornall and Marloes Wantenaar have written an article about the judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) - issued on 19 September 2024 - in Booking.com BV and Booking.com (Deutschland) GmbH v 25hours Hotel Company Berlin GmbH and Others. Helen and Marloes represented Booking.com in these proceedings.

The article was published in the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice (available here). The authors discuss the CJEU's ruling which indicates that, while the ancillary restraints doctrine may not apply, the Vertical Restraints Block Exception Regulation (VBER) is available to exempt price parity clauses, and the importance of considering the two-sided nature of OTA platforms when defining the relevant market when applying the VBER / Article 101 TFEU.