{"id":229395,"date":"2026-09-10T14:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=229395"},"modified":"2026-09-10T14:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:42:49","slug":"european-justice-blocks-etraveli-acquisition-by-booking-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/bookijustice-europeenne-bloque-acquisition-etraveli-booking-com","title":{"rendered":"Booking.com blocked by European court over acquisition of Etraveli"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A proposed buyout of Etraveli by Booking Holdings<\/a>, parent company of Booking.com, has just suffered a serious setback in Brussels.<\/p>\n

On 9 September, the General Court of the European Union upheld the European Commission's decision to block this \u20ac1.63 billion transaction, considering that it could have strengthened Booking Holdings' dominant position in the online hotel booking market by incorporating an aviation component.<\/p>\n

The acquisition was intended to allow Booking.com to further integrate flight booking into its ecosystem. While the Swedish company Etraveli is scarcely known to the general public, many travellers on the other hand use the platforms Gotogate and MyTrip<\/a> to book flights. The company also provides airline content distribution technologies with TripStack.<\/p>\n

For the European competition authorities, the issue nevertheless went far beyond the scope of the airline market. Their concern was Booking.com's ability to use Etraveli's flights business to consolidate its power in the hotel industry.<\/p>\n

The court effectively validated this analysis. It considers in particular that Booking Holdings could have attracted new customers through flight bookings, and then directed them towards its hotel offers. This mechanism would have reinforced the operator's dominance and created new commercial barriers to the entry and expansion of competing hotel booking platforms.<\/p>\n

The European court also upheld the principle of \u00abreverse leveraging\u00bb. In this scenario, Booking would not have used its dominant position in the hotel sector to enter the flights market, but rather would have acquired a flights business in order to strengthen its initial position in the hotel sector.<\/p>\n

In its defence, Booking Holdings had argued that the acquisition offered numerous benefits for travellers by providing a more integrated travel offering, encouraging the simultaneous booking of flights and hotels on a single platform. The argument clearly failed to strike a chord with the judges.<\/p>\n

Booking Holdings stated that it was \u00abincredibly disappointed\u00bb by this decision, and claims that the European analysis is flawed both in substance and in law. The company is now considering appealing to the court above the General Court of the European Union\u2014specifically the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has jurisdiction to hear potential appeals on points of law. The saga is therefore not over yet\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

European justice, via the General Court of the European Union, rejected the acquisition of Etraveli by Booking Holdings, which would have given the former the opportunity to offer flight and accommodation bookings on a single website, to the detriment of competition. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":229427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"type-darticle":[52],"n_magazine":[],"class_list":["post-229395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe","type-darticle-breve","vapo-free"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBooking.com recal\u00e9 par la justice europ\u00e9enne sur l'acquisition de Etraveli<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"La justice europ\u00e9enne, par le biais du Tribunal de l'Union Europ\u00e9enne, a rejet\u00e9 l'acquisition par Booking Holdings d'Etraveli, qui aurait \u00e0 donn\u00e9 au premier une possibilit\u00e9 de proposer la r\u00e9servation de vols et d'un h\u00e9bergement sur un site unique. 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