Online travel agency Make My Trip, Goibibo, and hotel service provider OYO on Friday was fined more than Rs 392 million in total by the Indian Competition Commission (CCI).
Under this declaration, Make My Trip and Goibib are liable to pay a fine of Rs 223.48 crore and OYO will pay Rs 168.88 crore.
“CCI imposes penalties of ₹223.48 crores and ₹168.88 crores upon MMT-Go and OYO respectively, besides directing MMT-Go to amend its market behavior, for indulging in anti-competitive conduct,” the anti-trust regulator voiced.
MMT-Go says they “imposed price parity in their agreements with hotel partners“. According to this agreement, a hotel cannot “sell a room on another platform or its online portal at a price lower than the price offered on both organizations’ platforms“.
CCI also reviewed a commercial agreement between MMT-Go and OYO which was later revealed that FabHotels and Treebo from their first online portal listing in 2018. Such hostile practices have created a pessimistic impact on the hospitality industry.
“MMT-Go is directed to provide access to its platform on a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory basis to the hotels/chain hotels, by formulating the platforms‘ listing terms and conditions in an objective manner,” the order stated.
MMT-Go has also been instructed to deliver transparent information on the platform about properties that are unknown on the platform due to the termination of contracts with hotels/chain hotels or exhaustion of allocated quotas.
