{"id":5867,"date":"2025-04-22T08:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T08:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/?p=5867"},"modified":"2025-06-18T08:45:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T08:45:35","slug":"eskariam-and-geradin-partners-launch-a-strategic-alliance-to-defend-hotels-against-booking-com-in-spain-and-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/eskariam-and-geradin-partners-launch-a-strategic-alliance-to-defend-hotels-against-booking-com-in-spain-and-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskariam and Geradin Partners launch a strategic alliance to defend hotels against Booking.com in Spain and France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u00a0<strong>Madrid \/ Paris, 22 April 2025<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Eskariam<\/strong>, a Spanish firm specialised in complex damage litigation, and <strong>Geradin Partners<\/strong>, a European law firm focused on competition law, have announced a strategic alliance to coordinate their efforts in the damage litigation they are leading in Spain and France, respectively, on behalf of hotels affected by Booking.com\u2019s long-standing anticompetitive practices.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This collaboration follows the recent judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), dated 19 September 2024, which questions the parity clauses imposed by Booking.com over the years, arguing that such clauses were neither necessary nor proportionate to the objectives pursued. These contractual provisions prevented hotels and other accommodation providers from offering lower prices or better conditions through other sales channels, thus limiting their commercial freedom. The firms will also consider other possible abuses such as excessive pricing or unlawful practices by Booking.com, in particular regarding the <em>BSB<\/em> and <em>Preferred <\/em>programs.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through this alliance, hotels will benefit from the support of a transnational team highly specialised in litigation involving competition law infringements, with extensive experience in high-impact European cases. In Spain, Eskariam is currently leading major claims such as the \u201cMilk Cartel\u201d case, valued at more than \u20ac1.2 billion. Geradin Partners is leading more than a dozen competition damages claims in France, the Netherlands and the UK.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A faster, stronger and more effective alternative to the Netherlands-based approach<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The alliance between Eskariam and Geradin Partners is based on a national litigation model with European coordination, respecting the legal frameworks and commercial specificities of each national market. It is presented as a solid alternative to the initiative promoted by the HOTREC association, and followed in Spain by CEHAT, under the leadership of the German law firm SGP Schneider Geiwitz to bring a pan-European action before the Dutch Courts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The national litigation route led by Eskariam in Spain and Geradin Partners in France enables hotels to claim compensation adapted to their specific operational and economic context. This model preserves proximity to clients, avoids legal uncertainties such as conflicts of applicable law, and is backed by a cross-border collaboration between highly specialised firms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This transnational strategy allows for faster proceedings, a defence tailored to the reality of the hotel sector in each country, and greater legal and economic effectiveness. In addition, international coordination strengthens the technical rigour of expert reports by drawing on jurisdiction-specific data, increasing the chances of success and paving the way for a potential global settlement under more favourable conditions for the claimant hotels.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Discussions are already underway to expand this alliance to other countries, including Italy and Portugal, with the aim of extending European coverage and building a united legal front against Booking.com.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About Eskariam<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ESKARIAM is a legal services company based in Madrid, specialising in complex damage claims. Founded in 2018, it brings together a team of expert lawyers and professionals from various fields and applies advanced technology to ensure the efficient management of collective litigation. ESKARIAM has successfully led numerous claims against banks and insurance companies and currently represents clients in several high-profile cases in Spain, including the Milk Cartel, pay for delay and other anticompetitive infringments on behalf of public authorities, the Nappies Cartel, and damages litigation on behalf of professional basketball clubs against the ACB, among others.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About Geradin Partners<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>GERADIN PARTNERS is a European law firm specialised in competition law, competition litigation and digital regulation. The firm is based in Brussels, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Helsinki. GERADIN PARTNERS comprises 24 specialised lawyers and 11 partners, many of whom worked for the European Commission, the European Courts, the national competition auhtorities and top Universties. They have unbeatable experience defending both plaintiffs and defendants in complex litigation cases. They currently lead more than a dozen damages claims, more than half of which are against big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The law firms adopt a national approach with European reach, tailored to the legal and commercial realities of Spanish and French hotels <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eskariam-en","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskariam.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}