Did you provide UK accommodation on Booking.com?
A new collective legal action alleges Booking.com's pricing policies forced UK accommodation providers to pay unlawfully high commissions. If you provided accommodation, you may be eligible for compensation.
How Booking.com's policies may have cost your business
What is Booking.com's "Price Parity" policy?
The Price Parity policy is a restrictive clause in your contract that prohibits you from offering a lower price for your rooms on your own website, even for direct enquiries. The result? Your business remained financially tethered to their platform.
How did this policy cost my business?
Because you couldn't use competitive pricing to secure direct bookings, customers often chose Booking.com instead. This allowed Booking.com to collect high commissions on bookings that should have been yours, taking profit directly from your business.
What is this collective legal action doing about it?
We are bringing this collective legal action to challenge these unlawful rules and to facilitate the recovery of commission payments on behalf of affected UK accommodation providers. Our purpose is to help you recover the profit unfairly taken from your business.
You are a UK accommodation provider (e.g., hotels, B&Bs, short-stay operators).
You used Booking.com to list your property/properties located in the UK.
You paid commission to Booking.com in connection with those UK listings.
Registering for updates is for informational purposes only. All your details will be held securely by the legal team and will not be shared with Booking.com.
How Booking.com's price parity policies cost your business
In a competitive market, accommodation providers are free to set their own prices across different channels. This competition benefits businesses by allowing them to attract direct bookings with competitive pricing, reducing reliance on third-party platforms and their commission fees.
Booking.com's price parity policies allegedly prevented accommodation providers from offering lower prices elsewhere. By requiring price matching across all channels, these policies effectively eliminated price competition, allowing Booking.com to maintain high commission rates without market pressure to reduce them.
By preventing you from offering competitive prices elsewhere, Booking.com allegedly shielded itself from market forces that would normally drive commission rates down. The result was that you paid higher commissions than you would have in a truly competitive marketplace, with these extra costs coming directly from your business profits.
FAQs
Find answers to common questions about the legal action, compensation, and how we manage your claim information.
A collective proceeding, similar to a class action, allows a group of people or businesses with similar claims to bring a single legal case together. In this instance, UK accommodation providers who paid commissions to Booking.com can be represented collectively, making it easier and more cost-effective to seek compensation.
At this stage, there is no application process. This is an opt-out collective proceeding, which means you are automatically included if you meet the eligibility criteria. You don't need to take any action now - simply register for updates to stay informed as the case progresses.
Yes, if you're a UK accommodation provider who listed properties on Booking.com and paid commissions, you are automatically included in this opt-out proceeding. You don't need to register or take any action to be part of the claim, though you can choose to opt out if you prefer.
No. This legal action is being pursued on a no-win, no-fee basis. You won't be asked to pay any upfront costs or legal fees. Any legal costs will only be recovered from damages awarded if the case is successful.
No. Your registration details are held securely by the legal team managing this action and will not be shared with Booking.com or any third parties. Registering for updates is purely for informational purposes and does not affect your business relationship with Booking.com.
Price parity policies are contractual terms that prevent you from offering lower prices on your own website or through other channels than you do on Booking.com. These policies are alleged to have restricted competition and resulted in accommodation providers paying higher commissions than they would have in a competitive market.
Yes. If you operated a UK accommodation business that was listed on Booking.com and paid commissions during the relevant period, you may still be eligible for compensation even if you no longer own the property. The claim relates to commissions paid in the past, not current ownership.
Regulated by the SRA (no.567651)
