Hotel reservation site Booking.com has offered to settle antitrust cases brought against it in Sweden, France and Italy, and on Monday antitrust authorities invited hotels to give their views on the settlement.

Antitrust authorities in those countries targeted Booking.com because its contracts oblige hotels to offer it the same or better room prices as the hotels offer other distribution channels, online or offline.

These so-called “parity clauses”, or best price deals, harm competition in the sector and are in breach of national competition laws as well as European Union antitrust rules, the countries’ antitrust authorities concluded in preliminary investigations. They are in particular concerned that the deals hamper competition between Booking.com and other online travel agents, while they also could make it hard for new companies to enter the market.

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