RYANAIR WINS ITS CASE AGAINST TRAVEL GIANT BOOKING.COM IN
DELAWARE COURT RULING
JURY RULES THAT BOOKING.COM
VIOLATED U.S. COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE ACT (CFAA)
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD RYANAIR
JURY DISMISSES BOOKING.COM'S
COUNTERCLAIM AGAINST RYANAIR ARGUING
DEFAMATION, AND UNFAIR COMPETITION
Ryanair Holdings Plc, today (Fri 19
Jul), welcomed the unanimous verdicts of the jury in the Delaware
District Court, which last evening unanimously ruled in favour of
Ryanair's claims that Booking.com had violated the US Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act, causing loss to Ryanair. The jury also ruled
that Booking.com had done so knowingly with "intent to defraud",
and that Ryanair had suffered economic harm as a result of
Booking.com's unlawful screenscraping activity.
The Delaware Court jury also
dismissed all Booking.com's counterclaims against Ryanair, which
included claims for defamation, unfair competition, and deceptive
trade practices. These Delaware Court rulings prove that
Booking.com was knowingly engaged in unlawful screenscraping of the
Ryanair.com website, with an intent to defraud Ryanair. Ryanair has
long complained about the deceptive practices of OTA Pirates like
Booking.com, who used intermediate software providers to scrape
Ryanair's website, and then use this information to overcharge
consumers for Ryanair air fares and/or ancillary services but mask
these anti-consumer practices by making bookings using fake
customer emails and fake customer payment cards.
Ryanair's CEO Michael O'Leary said:
"Ryanair and our customers warmly welcome yesterday's
unanimous jury ruling in the Delaware Court, which comprehensively
(found in favour of Ryanair, proving that the travel industry giant
Booking.com had illegally "scraped" Ryanair's website, and did so
with an intention to defraud both Ryanair and ordinary consumers,
which was in breach of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. We
expect that this ruling will end the internet piracy and
overcharging perpetrated on both airlines and other travel
companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA Pirates
like Booking.com.
It is unacceptable that global giants, like Booking.com (mkt cap
$133 billion), have been engaged in these illegal and deceptive
practices for many years with the intent to defraud both Ryanair
and consumers. Ryanair has fought to protect consumers and ensure
that they have direct access to Ryanair's low fares, and our
low-price ancillary services without OTAs, like Booking.com and
others, inserting themselves into this relationship in order to
overcharge unsuspecting consumers who believe they are booking
directly with Ryanair, but in fact are being duped into booking (at
inflated prices) via these OTA Pirates like Booking.com.
We
also welcome the Delaware Courts rejection of Booking.com's
counterclaims that they had been defamed by Ryanair when calling
them an OTA Pirate. We hope these Delaware Court rulings will now
see an end to OTA Pirates illegally screenscraping travel websites
like Ryanair.com, and will force consumer agencies across the UK
and Europe to finally take action to outlaw this illegal
screenscraping and over charging of consumers for flights and
ancillary services.
This ruling is a great victory for low fare air travel, and it's a
great win for the travelling public as well. We sincerely thank the
District Court of Delaware and the jury for their ruling, which
completely vindicates Ryanair's case against Booking.com on behalf
of our customers. We now call on Booking.com's vastly overpaid CEO
Glen Fogel ($46m pay in 2023) that he and his company will cease
scraping the Ryanair.com website and stop overcharging consumers
with inflated air fares and ancillary services, now that
Booking.com has been found to be in breach of the US Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act."
ENDS
For further info
please
contact:
Ryanair Press
Office
Tel:
+353-1-9451799
press@ryanair.com