Travel Agents undertake not to boycott Ryanair

The Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA) and a number of individual travel agents today (Monday, 27th July 1998) gave undertakings to the High Court not to engage in any boycott of Ryanair with a view to forcing it to increase commission on the sales of its airline tickets. In April of this year the Competition Authority instituted proceedings against the parties concerned alleging a breach of Section 4(1) of the Competition Act, 1991, which prohibits agreements, decisions or concerted practices which have the object or effect of preventing, restricting or distorting competition within the State, including arrangements which directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices.

The undertakings given by the ITAA provide that it would not organise meetings, circulate members or take any other actions to implement or organise a boycott or take any actions which were designed to encourage ITAA members not to sell Ryanair products. A number of travel agents also gave undertakings not to take any steps to boycott Ryanair products with a view to forcing Ryanair to increase commission on its airline tickets. The agents involved were Portlaoise Travel Limited, Club Travel Limited, Tony Bond Travel, Sunset Tours & Travel and Arrow Tours. The ITAA and the named travel agents agreed to pay the Authority's legal costs.

The Authority indicated that it had brought proceedings with a view to obtaining Court undertakings from the defendants following a lengthy investigation. The Authority was concerned that any arrangement involving a boycott of a particular airline would reduce competition in the market and deny consumers access to low-price air fares. Since the end of last year the Authority has instituted proceedings against several organisations for alleged breaches of the Competition Acts. For further information contact: Pat Massey, Director of Competition Enforcement at 8045406 or 087 2371473.

Subject to the provisions of this section all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition in trade in any goods or services in the State or in any part of the State are prohibited and void, including in particular, without prejudice to the generality of this subsection, those which-

1. directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any other trading conditions;
2. limit or control production, markets, technical development or investment;
3. share markets or sources of supply;
4. apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
5. make the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which by their nature or according to commercial usage have no connection with the subject of such contracts.'