Compass Lexecon advised Amadeus during European Commission investigation

In November 2018, the European Commission ("EC") opened two investigations into the airline ticket distribution sector. The EC assessed whether certain conditions in agreements by Amadeus and Sabre restricted the ability of airlines and travel agents to use alternative suppliers of ticket distribution services, thereby violating Article 101 TFEU (case AT.40617 and case AT.40618, respectively).

Compass Lexecon assisted Amadeus during the EC investigation. We contributed, among other things, with a series of academic studies on the economics of wholesale parity agreements, which have been published in Economics Letters, the International Journal of Industrial Organization and the Journal of Competition Law and Economics. The EC investigation was closed in July 2021 without an infringement decision.

The team was led by Jorge Padilla and Salvatore Piccolo. They worked with Gerardo Faundez from Amadeus and Deirdre Trapp, Alan Ryan and Sacha Schubert from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.