The judicial court of Paris felt that Booking, a Dutch company, had “unknown” certain provisions of the Code of Tourism by not transmitting certain information to the city of Paris.
Le Monde with AFP
This is a new victory of the city of Paris against online accommodation booking platforms. The company Booking.com was sentenced, Monday, October 18, to a fine of € 1.234 million for non-compliance with the Tourism Code.
The judicial court of Paris felt that Booking.com, a Dutch company, had “unknown” certain provisions of the Code of Tourism by not transmitting certain information to the City of Paris, including the number of days during which Furnished tourism were the subject of a rental.
The city of Paris, which asked for a fine of more than 150 million euros, assigned booking before the civil justice in January 2021, believing that it had not received the requested information “within the deadlines.
Minorized fine
“booking.com BV demonstrates having, in a compliance approach, transmitted the requested information,” says the court’s decision, which, however, considers that the company has laduned “to communicate the data requested by the City of Paris. “Thus, unlike the demand by the City of Paris which seeks dissuasive sanction, the pronounced fine must be fixed at a minor amount,” explains the decision. The entire civil fencing will be donated to the City of Paris, “pursuant to the Code of Tourism”.
“We are disappointed by the decision (…) on the sharing of data between Booking.com and the city of Paris”, commented on the Dutch society, which says working “in close collaboration with the city of Paris since then for Guarantee the quality and effectiveness of the data we share and to ensure that we fully meet all our legal obligations in France. “
“In this case, the data required retroactively by law did not allow Booking.com to have the time required to respond correctly to the requirements of the City of Paris related to the quality of the shared files”, A Underlined Booking. “Since then, we have been trying to continually improve the quality of the transmitted data, to the satisfaction of the city of Paris.”
Arm of the city of Paris against the platforms
Faced with a shortage of accommodation, the city of Paris wants to regulate the platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor or HomeAway. In February, she had won a legal victory, the Court of Cassation judging her regulation in accordance with European law, allowing him to pursue hundreds of indelicates. With this decision, an apartment can no longer be rented legally more than one hundred and twenty days a year on a platform like Airbnb without having been the subject of a request for change of use, very binding and rather dissuasive .
The Court has validated the very binding mechanism called “compensation” that goes hand in hand: an authorization is issued to the owner wishing to reserve the use of a second residence at the short-term tourist rental than. It buys an equivalent – or even double surface in some areas – to transform it into a housing, to compensate for “loss of accommodation”.