On Thursday 2 February, the European Commission announced that it had opened three separate investigations into certain online sales practices that are potentially in breach of the European competition rules.
The European institution has concerns that certain businesses are building obstacles to cross-border electronic trade, a practice that would fragment the single market on the basis of national borders and hinder competition.
First of all, the Commission is attempting to determine whether the companies Asus, Denon & Marantz, Philips and Pioneer have broken the European competition rules by limiting the ability of online retailers to set their own prices for widely used consumer electronics products such as household appliances, notebooks and hi-fi products. It opened this investigation on its own initiative.
Secondly, the Commission is examining the bilateral agreements concluded between the company Valve Corporation, which owns the game distribution platform Steam, and five publishers of PC video games, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax.
This investigation is focusing on geo-blocking, a practice that prevents consumers from purchasing digital content, in this case PC video games, due to their geographical location or country of residence. The Commission is carrying out this in-depth investigation on its own initiative.
Thirdly, following complaints from consumers, the Commission is looking into the hotel accommodation agreements concluded between major European tour operators (Kuoni, REWE, Thomas Cook and TUI) and hotels (Melia Hotels).
The Commission has no objection to hotels developing and introducing innovative pricing mechanisms to maximise room usage, but hotels and tour operators cannot discriminate against customers on the basis of their geographical location. However, the agreements in question may contain clauses that lead to discrimination between customers, on the basis of their nationality or country of residence, preventing them from seeing all available bedrooms or booking a room at the best price. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)