Hotel booking platform Booking.com have been censured by the German regulator, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) for a clause in their contracts with hotels which prevented the hotels from selling rooms more cheaply on their own website than on Booking.com’s website. The FCO say this infringes European competition law, an aspect contested by the company, which has announced it will appeal. (Source: Pinsent Curtis solicitors.)

Nevertheless Booking.com have removed the offending clause from their contracts.

The consumer-unfriendly nature of online booker’s contracts came to light when FCO’s president Andreas Mundt stayed an extra night in a Bavarian hotel and was charged more for it by the hotel directly than the nights he had booked on another online booking platform.