CJEU C-264/23: Best price clauses in online accommodation booking platforms are not in principle contrary to EU competition law

In 2020 Booking.com brought an action before the Rechtbank Amsterdam (Amsterdam District Court, the Netherlands), which is the referring court in the present case, seeking a judgment that the best price clauses which it uses do not infringe Article 101 TFEU and that the defendants in the main proceedings have not suffered damage as a result of those clauses. The latter sought, by way of counterclaim, a judgment that Booking.com had infringed Article 101 TFEU and an order that it pay damages for infringement of Article 101 TFEU.The CJEU held that Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that both broad and narrow best price clauses contained in agreements concluded between online hotel booking platforms and accommodation service providers do not fall outside the scope of that provision on the ground that they are allegedly ancillary to those agreements.