A class of plaintiffs have filed an antitrust action in the Northern District of California captioned Turik et al. v. Expedia Inc. et al., and alleging that online travel reservation firms and hotels have conspired to fix prices for hotel accommodations. The complaint alleges that the so-called “price-match guarantee” is really a means to fix prices and that discount websites have been unable to offer discounted prices because of the anticompetitive agreement.
Although the DOJ passed on investigating after a preliminary inquiry, the UK Office of Fair Trading issued a statement of objection against Expedia and Priceline.