P2B Regulation has teeth – French and Italian regulators show

Two recent events have brought vitality to an EU instrument that has been dormant for most of its six-year existence – Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019, on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (Platform-to-Business ("P2B") Regulation).

First, at the beginning of November 2025, the Italian regulator AGCOM ordered the Austrian company Refurbed Marketplace GmbH to modify its general terms and conditions. Then, on 31 January 2026, at the end of the compliance deadline imposed by the competent French regulator, the world's largest online booking platform, Booking, amended its general terms and conditions. These developments mark a transition from abstract supervisory powers to concrete enforcement of online platform obligations under the P2B Regulation.

Booking.com case

The French Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control ("DGCCRF") investigated in 2025 the business relationships between French hoteliers and four booking platforms, including Booking.com. Hoteliers claimed to be operating in what could best be described as a form of "forced coexistence" with dominant digital platforms, where the necessity of online visibility often came at the cost of accepting unbalanced terms and conditions. In a decision dated 3 July 2025 (reproduced here), DGCCRF ordered the company Booking.com BV to bring its general terms and conditions of service into compliance with the P2B Regulation. The stakes were substantial. Failure to comply by 31 January 2026 would have triggered a daily financial penalty, the cumulative amount of which could have reached up to EUR 69.35 million.

In response, Booking.com BV introduced 44 amendments to its contractual framework. The changes took effect on 29 January 2026.These revisions address long-standing concerns raised by industry stakeholders, most notably the platform’s ability to unilaterally influence end-consumer pricing, achieved through arbitrary price reductions and contractual mechanisms that effectively undermine hoteliers’ commercial freedom and pricing autonomy.

The following highlights the key aspects in which the DGCCRF’s decision found Booking.com's terms to be non-compliant with the P2B Regulation:

• Disclosure and Transparency of Terms and Conditions: Platforms are required to ensure that their terms and conditions, including those presented at the pre-contractual stage, are fully accessible and drafted in a manner that is readily comprehensible to business users (Art. 3(1), letters (a) and (b));
• Formal Notice of Amendments to Terms: Platforms are required to inform business users of planned amendments to the general conditions via a durable medium, providing a reasonable notice period (at least 15 days), with exceptions narrowly defined by the P2B Regulation (Art. 3(2));
• Disclosure of Supplementary Distribution Channels: Platforms must disclose information regarding any additional distribution channels or potential affiliate programmes used to offer their business users’ goods and services (Art. 3(1), letter (d));
• Account Suspension and Termination: Should a business user’s account be suspended or terminated, the platform must deliver a statement of reasons for that decision using a durable medium (Art. 4);
• Ranking Parameters: Platforms are obliged to describe the core factors that govern the ranking of goods and services on their platform and to clarify the significance attributed to each factor (Art. 5); and
• Allocation of Costs in Mediation Proceedings:The expenses arising from mediation should be equitably shared by the parties, as recommended by the mediator (Art. 12(4)).

AGCOM’s ruling on Refurbed

The decision by AGCOM, the Italian Communications Authority, dated 6 November 2025, against the comparatively small online marketplace Refurbed, reinforces the principle that compliance with P2B standards is mandatory, regardless of market size, and that delayed adherence can trigger formal enforcement measures.

• Transparency in Ranking: Similar to DGCCRF in the Booking case, AGCOM exposed a breach of Art. 5(1) of the P2B Regulation, regarding the mandatory disclosure of ranking parameters. Refurbed Marketplace GmbH eventually updated its Terms and Conditions; however, AGCOM determined that the obligation had been fulfilled belatedly. Specifically, information regarding the main parameters determining the visibility of goods and services was only provided after the classification system had already been operational and in use. This delay was found to compromise the rights of business users to understand the criteria influencing their ranking during the pre-contractual stage.
• Access to Data: The assessment of compliance with Art. 9 of the P2B Regulation revealed a transparency gap. Before March 2025, Refurbed did not make available a description of the technical and contractual access, or absence thereof, of business users to data generated through the use of the platform. In the terms updated in March 2025, the information on access was included, but it lacked the level of detail required by Art. 9. It was only under the pressure of formal proceedings that Refurbed finally integrated the specific details mandated by paras. 1 and 2 of Art. 9, i.e. clarified the conditions under which personal and non-personal data may be accessed and shared.
• Internal Complaint-Handling System: AGCOM found that Refurbed failed to provide business users with clear instructions on how to initiate a complaint or how the resolution process is structured, violating the provisions of Art. 11, paras. 2 and 3 of the P2B Regulation. The platform also fell short of its obligation to publish annual reports on the system’s performance (para. 4 of the same Article), omitting specific data on complaint volume, types, and average processing times. Unlike the other counts, which ended in a warning, these failures triggered a formal executive order. Refurbed is now under a strict compliance timeline: the company was required to submit a detailed roadmap for reform within the first 30 days, followed by a 120-day period to fully implement a robust complaint system and launch the mandatory annual reporting.
• Ensuring Dispute Resolution Pathways: Lastly, AGCOM addressed the availability of out-of-court resolution of disputes with business users. Under Art. 12(1) of the P2B Regulation, providers are required to identify at least two mediators in their terms and conditions. While Refurbed updated its terms in July 2024 to include the required mediators, the Authority made it clear: late compliance does not rectify past breaches. This reinforces the principle that transparency requirements must be fully integrated into a platform’s terms from its launch.

The evolution of P2B: redundancy or necessity in the new digital landscape?

The European Commission, under its 2025 "Digital Omnibus" initiative, has formally proposed the repeal of the P2B Regulation, signalling a major shift toward a more streamlined digital legislative framework. While the Regulation served as a pioneering step in protecting small businesses from the power of online giants, the Commission argues that the landscape has fundamentally changed with the recent enforcement of the Digital Services Act ("DSA") and the Digital Markets Act ("DMA"). The core motivation for this repeal is the elimination of overlapping rules that force businesses to navigate multiple sets of requirements for the same issues, such as ranking transparency and complaint handling. By folding the P2B’s essence into the more robust and modern DSA and DMA, the Commission aims to replace a "residual" and often under-enforced Regulation with a streamlined framework that offers sharper teeth and clearer boundaries.

An example of this regulatory layering is visible in the rules governing ranking transparency. Art. 5 of the P2B Regulation obligates platforms to disclose their main ranking parameters in plain and intelligible language - a standard that is now mirrored by Art. 27 of the DSA, which mandates nearly identical disclosures for recommender systems. Similarly, Art. 3(1), letter (b) of the P2B Regulation, which requires platforms to make their terms and conditions easily accessible to business users (including potential ones), corresponds closely with Art. 14(1) of the DSA, mandating that such information "…shall be publicly available in an easily accessible and machine-readable format". There are also significant overlaps in the areas of complaint-handling systems (Art. 11 of the P2B Regulation and Arts. 15, 20, and 24 of the DSA) and mediation (Art. 12 of the P2B Regulation and Art. 21 of the DSA).

However, the transition is less seamless regarding data access. While the Commission suggests that Art. 9 of the P2B Regulation is overtaken by other acts, the DSA lacks a corresponding provision on the description of data access policy. Although the DMA (Art. 6(9) and Art. 6(10)) provides robust real-time data access rights, these apply vis-a-vis "gatekeepers". This creates a potential regulatory loophole: if the P2B Regulation were repealed, non-gatekeeper platforms would no longer be under a specific EU-wide obligation to disclose their data access policies to business users.

The fate of this regulatory shift now rests with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, as they consider the Commission's initiative. The Commission notes that the P2B never quite delivered its intended impact, as evidenced by the surprising lack of formal complaints despite its broad scope. The decisions of the regulators in France and Italy may come too late to change the dynamics.