1.12.2007 Official Journal of the European Union L 31421 COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 21 August 2007 declaring a concentration compatible with the common market and the functioning of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/M.4523 — Travelport/Worldspan) (notified under document number C(2007) 3938) (Only the English text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2007/781EC) On 21 August 2007 the Commission adopted a Decision in a merger case under Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (1), and in particular Article 8(1) of that Regulation. A non-confidential version of the full decision can be found in the authentic language of the case and in the working languages of the Commission on the website of the Directorate-General for Competition, at the following address: http://ec.europa.eu/comm,/ competition/index_en.html I. SUMMARY Travelport LLC, a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group (Blackstone, USA), operates Galileo — a global distri- bution system (GDS) and Gulliver's Travel Associates. In addition, Travelport operates a number of online travel agencies and websites, including ebookers, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Octopus Travel, HotelClub and RatesToGo. Worldspan Technologies Inc. (Worldspan) provides travel distribution services through the Worldspan GDS. The company focuses on providing GDS services to on-line and, more recently also traditional travel agencies, primarily in the leisure sector. Furthermore, Worldspan provides IT services to airlines (e.g. internal reservation systems and flight operations technology services). Pursuant to the operation, based on a referral pursuant to Article 4(5) of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (the Merger Regulation) Travelport acquires within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation control of the whole of Worldspan by way of purchase of shares. The Commission’s market investigation has revealed that the proposed concentration will not give raise to any competition concerns as a result of which effective competition would be significantly impeded in the Common Market or in a substantial part of it. () O] L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1. II. EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM IL.1. Relevant Product Market and Possible Alter- native Market Definitions In previous cases, the Commission has defined a GDS as a tool provided to travel agencies (TAs) in order to allow them to obtain information and make reservations related to travel service providers (TSPs), ie. airlines, hotels and rental car firms, who in turn supply the GDS with data on the products they provide. The product market affected by this transaction is defined in the Decision as the market for electronic travel distri- bution services through a GDS. This market is of a two- sided nature, with two separate customer categories. GDS providers act as intermediaries, allowing on the one hand TSPs, (upstream of the GDS provider) to distribute their travel content to TAs and ultimately to end-consumers and on the other hand TAs (downstream of the GDS provider) to access and book travel content for the end-consumers. The in-depth investigation has confirmed these characteristics of the product market. The Commission has assessed whether — as the notifying party has stated — the relevant product market consists not only of the GDS providers them- selves but also of alternative technologies by which GDS providers can be by-passed and their use avoided. These alternatives are (i) meta search engines, (i) direct links, (iii) so-called ‘GDS New Entrants’ (GNEs) and the (iv) ‘supplier.com’.