Online travel agencies, minimum advertized prices and online intermediation services: some lessons from the Swedish Finnair case

In 2023, the Swedish Competition Authority adopted a decision accepting commitments from Finnair to reverse a policy implemented with online travel agencies. Specifically, Finnair was preventing online travel agencies from marketing Finnair airfares at a discounted level (relative to the airfares offered by Finnair to the online travel agencies) to customers who were searching for Finnair tickets online, in particular on metasearch websites. This case is noteworthy for three reasons. First, this commitments decision has commercial and strategic implications for the sector across the European Union. Second, while conflicting legal arguments were raised, the economic assessment was quite unequivocal, pointing to the challenged conduct being very likely to generate anti-competitive effects. Third, the Swedish Competition Authority’s investigation overlapped with the entry into force of the 2022 European Commission’s Vertical Block Exemption Regulation and showed some potential ambiguity in its interpretation and application, which the investigation’s outcome has hopefully alleviated.