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OFFICERS FROM IRELAND’S competition watchdog have carried out a surprise inspection at Ryanair’s Dublin office.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) made the unannounced visit at 12:30 pm today on behalf of its Italian counterpart, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM).
“This unannounced inspection forms part of an ongoing investigation by the AGCM into potential breaches of EU competition law. Authorised Officers from the CCPC were supported by colleagues from the AGCM and from An Garda Síochána,” the commission told The Journal in a statement.
Competition watchdog agencies across the European Union can carry out inspections like the one today at the request of their counterparts in different countries.
In a statement, Ryanair welcomed the inspection and said it was part of an investigation in Italy into claims made by Italian online travel agents (OTAs) and traditional travel agencies about “Ryanair’s long running campaign to protect consumers from digital piracy and OTA overcharging”.
This is not the first time Ryanair and Italian competition authorities have clashed - the company was fined €3 million for its baggage policy in 2019. The current Italian Government launched a probe into the airline’s practices last autumn, specifically to look at Ryanair’s potential abuses of its dominant market position.
Ryanair has alleged that online travel agents, including those in Italy, are overcharging customers, referring to the agencies as “pirates”.
“Ryanair and its team are happy to fully cooperate with this investigation into its long running and increasingly successful campaign to prevent digital piracy and consumer overcharging by Italian OTAs,” the statement read.
The airline said that a number of Italian OTAs have recently made deals with the company “under which they agreed to stop screen scraping the Ryanair.com website and to stop overcharging consumers with inflated air fares, inflated ancillary fees and invented fees for non-existent services”.
“The Milan Court of Appeal in Feb 2024 dismissed false claims by Italian OTAs that Ryanair was in breach of Italian competition law,” the airline said.
Ryanair is also involved in a long-running dispute with some of Europe’s largest OTAs, including Booking.com and Kayak.
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I always thought this was the one that will have him eating porridge.
@ggg:
@ggg:
@ggg: yup. Of all of the cases against him this is the most likely to end up with a prison sentence. Easy to prove and automatic prison time.
They are really pushing for civil war over there! the democratics want to be careful what they wish for.
Where’s the charges for the people who repressed the hunter Biden laptop fiasco, and lying calling it a “Russian misinformation” all in the run up too the last election because it would have been detrimental impact on Biden campaign! Election meddling at its finest by the democratics and intelligence services..
@I9AQcjXs: Are you saying that Republicans aren’t democratic?
@I9AQcjXs: it’s not the democrats prosecuting him. Hunter biden is a private citizen and a republican led oversight commitee has admitted there is nothing illegal on the laptop. It is a nothing burger, as they say. If this is election meddling, what do you call trump asking georgia to ‘find’ 11k votes?
@I9AQcjXs: so Trump shouldn’t have to abide by the law because it might offend some of his lunatic supporters? Also you are way behind the time regarding Hunters laptop which even the GOP say is a nothing burger. Not to mention that he isn’t running for public office and never has. But you know who was running for office? Hillary Clinton, when her email story was announced the week before the election. But you’re not interested in facts are you? That’s why you didn’t know that the Laptop story has been done to death and proven to be much ado about nothing.
I’m not a supporter of trump but the alleged crimes committed in 2016 and 2020 are coming to the forefront now with prosecutions. He could have been prosecuted at the time but all this coming up now when he is running for election shows a pure political motivation to these allegations.
@Ciaran: can’t prosecute a sitting president, he was in office between those years. Also this particular offence didn’t happen until the end of 2020. Prosecutions in the USA take as long as they do here.
Finally an article on Niall Collins but surprise surprise, comments once again closed. Why do the journal feel he needs protecting from criticism or questions? None of this debacle is before the courts yet. Cowardly journal staff.
@ggg: Their website. Their terms and conditions. Their legal liability for content, including comments posted. I’m sure Their are plenty of forums on which you could comment online about that news story.
@Numinous20111: what legal liability? Nothing is before the courts. I’m thinking you may not know what legal liability is my friend.
@ggg: It’s commonsense, not cowardice. We have strong libel laws in Ireland and the commentators on here aren’t exactly known for their ability to fact check what they’re posting.
@The Big Baba: I can’t reply directly to ggg, so have to reply by means of your own comment. In your eagerness to comment, you are forgetting
or ignoring that comments here can be retrospectively relevant if legal process commences. Think also of why Fox News fired Carlson yesterday.
The amount of sad deluded people that refuse to accept how the lying treacherous orange thing is playing them for every penny he can.
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