State airport operator DAA “abused its dominant position” over the car hire market at Dublin Airport, the High Court heard on Tuesday.
A case taken by online car hire company Easirent against DAA over its ability to pick up and drop off customers at Dublin Airport began before Mr Justice Max Barrett at the High Court on Tuesday.
ER Travel Ltd, which trades under the name Easirent, sued DAA in 2019 for damages over a refusal by the airport operator to allow it to collect its customers at the airport and take them to its premises 2km away to pick up their rental cars.
[ DAA faces High Court hearing on ‘anti-competitive’ car hire claimsOpens in new window ]
ER Travel sought an injunction to allow them to continue to use a pickup area at the airport to collect customers until the case had been heard in full, but this was not granted.
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The company has claimed that the DAA’s restriction breaches both Irish competition law and the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union.
In his opening remarks to the trial on Tuesday, Noel Travers SC for ER Travel said that the case was “fundamentally” about DAA attempting to exclude his client from the market.
He claimed the DAA was deciding what type of competition is permissible in the rental car market through its refusal of access to the market.
He said there has been “stonewall refusal” to engage from DAA and characterised their refusal to allow ER Travel access to the market on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” terms as an “abuse of their dominant position”.
Mr Travers noted that DAA operates and owns the two busiest airports in the country, Dublin and Cork airports which amount for nearly 95 per cent of the market. Despite operating both airports, ER Travel’s representative said “completely different regimes are operated at the two airports” with ER Travel operating at Cork airport for 10 years, the court heard.
DAA bylaws ban the “use of an airport for any business purpose whatsoever” without permission having been granted by the airport operator, the court heard.
Mr Travers said while the concept of a “Republic of Cork” is regarded with a “degree of levity”, the laws are “applicable equally in all elements of the state”.
ER Travel received a number of “cease and desist” letters from DAA from 2016 for allegedly carrying out unlicensed business activity at the airport. These were followed by Swords District Court summonses, which were subsequently struck out, according to documents relating to the injunction hearing in 2019.
Counsel for ER Travel said the DAA were preventing the emergence of “new, innovative business models” and that their actions will result in consumers paying higher rates.
The airport operator hosts a number of car rental companies on its premises in Dublin under licensed agreements for a fee.
The company has alleged that DAA’s use of its own bylaws from 2014 – which allows the State-owned company to prohibit the use of the airport for business purposes other than when it gives permission – is anticompetitive in this case.
The DAA deny the claim that it acted in an unconstitutional, anticompetitive manner, or in breach of EU regulations. It further denies that the car hire company “provides its services ‘off the airport’”.
ER Travel, owned by British businessman Paul Hanley, is part of a group of companies that offers online car rental services in Ireland, the US and UK under the Easirent brand. The original UK business was founded in 1999 but sold in 2021.
Mr Hanley is set to give evidence as the case continues on Wednesday.
