Italy regulator ends Booking.com probe as commitments ease competition concerns

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's competition watchdog AGCM closed an investigation into Booking.com as it found commitments offered by the online travel platform sufficient to address the competition concerns it had raised, it said on Thursday.

AGCM opened in March a probe into Booking.com to establish whether the travel website was abusing its dominant market position with its hotel price policy.

The regulator said the way Booking.com's Preferred Partner Programme was handled "seemed likely to hinder effective competition in the market, at least nationwide, for online hotel brokerage and reservation services," resulting in higher prices and less choice for consumers.

Booking.com submitted a number of commitments to ensure that prices offered by hotels on other online channels would not be taken into account at any stage when managing and promoting those that are part of the programme.

(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Giulia Segreti)