Turkish Court Halts Activities of Traveling Site Booking.com

Turkish Court Halts Activities of Traveling Site Booking.com
The logo of online accommodation booking website Booking.com is pictured at the International Tourism Trade Fair (ITB) in Berlin, Germany on March 9, 2016. (REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)
Reuters
3/30/2017
Updated:
3/30/2017

ANKARA —A Turkish court halted the activities of online travel agent Booking.com in a court case alleging the website had violated Turkish competition law, the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies said on Wednesday.

The ruling by a court in Istanbul comes as a result of a 2015 case opened by TURSAB against Booking.com for allegedly carrying out “unjust competition against travel agencies”. The association had previously made Booking.com pay Turkey’s competition authority more than 2.5 million lira ($686,605) in fines.

The court ruled for the online travel agent’s activities to be protectively halted for an undisclosed period of time.