Hotels are putting a price on two decades of Booking commissions
More than 2,000 Spanish hotels across two class actions — one backed by a €50M litigation fund — are preparing to claw back commissions charged under parity clauses now ruled anticompetitive. A Dutch ruling due after summer will help set the price.
Driving the news. Spain's hotels are organizing to bill Booking.com for the past. More than 1,400 companies have joined a class action led by CCS Abogados for the hotel confederation CEHAT, and a second action from the firm Eskariam has gathered 750-plus properties and claims topping €200 million — a figure its advisers say could reach €4 billion if the wider group signs on (that estimate comes from a consultancy working for the claimants). Eskariam has secured a €50 million credit line from US investment firm Victory Park Capital to fund the fight. The claims rest on parity clauses: the contract terms that for two decades barred a hotel from selling its rooms more cheaply on its own site or any rival channel than on Booking. The Court of Justice of the EU ruled in September 2024 that those clauses breach competition law, and Booking dropped them across Europe that June. What's left to settle is the bill for the years they ran.
What's being clawed back. Parity was the lock on Booking's commission. By stopping a hotel from undercutting the platform anywhere, it let Booking hold rates near 20% without fear that the hotel's own website would win the price-sensitive guest. Take the clause away and the commission has to compete; leave it in for twenty years and the overcharge compounds. The claimant firms put recoverable damages at 7.3% of everything a hotel paid Booking, citing a UK precedent, while the Dutch foundation running a parallel case estimates 30% or more of total commissions since 2004 — both claimant-side figures, neither tested in court.
Why it matters for hotels. This is Booking's scale turning into its exposure. The independent and small-group properties that make up the bulk of its room nights — the base that gives the platform its reach — are the same parties now lining up to take money back, and outside capital is betting the claim is collectible. A €50 million litigation fund does not back a case it expects to lose. For a hotel, the mechanics lower the barrier to joining: CCS charges only on success and covers the costs itself if the case fails.
What's next. None of it is settled. CCS does not expect to file before 2027, Eskariam aims for the autumn, and Booking rejects the premise — it argues the EU court never declared parity clauses illegal, only that their effects must be judged case by case. The hinge is a Dutch court ruling on a parallel claim from more than 15,000 European hotels, expected after the summer. If it finds Booking abused a dominant position, the Spanish claims widen and the figure climbs. The clauses are already gone. What the courts decide now is what the past two decades cost.
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