TripAdvisor Is a Key Focus of the Expedia-Orbitz Merger Investigation

The fate of the Expedia-Orbitz merger could hinge on whether the U.S. Department of Justice, which is investigating the marriage out of antitrust concerns, determines that TripAdvisor Instant Booking will emerge as a significant enough hotel-booking competitor in the next couple of years. Karina Lubell, a former associate in the antitrust group of Shearman & Sterling and currently a senior correspondent at The Capitol Forum, writes that the Justice Department has been interviewing hoteliers in recent weeks and focusing on the competitive relevance of TripAdvisor as a new entrant in the hotel-booking arena. Lubell, who has done some of the best reporting on the Justice Department probe of Expedia's pending acquisition of Orbitz, reports that the DOJ does not regard Google and Amazon as viable hotel-booking counterweights to Expedia-Orbitz in the near future. With a Justice Department decision expected in "weeks, not months," according to The Capitol Forum, Lubell views it as somewhat of a negative in terms of the deal's likely coming to fruition that the probe is focusing so heavily on the TripAdvisor equation. That's because the focus on the TripAdvisor factor means the Justice Department could be evaluating the Expedia-Orbitz merger in terms of its competitive impact on the U.S. online travel agency market and not the broader U.S. travel market -- both online and offline -- where Expedia-Orbitz-Travelocity (acquired earlier this year) has less of a commanding position. "Stakeholders should consider both the timeliness and sufficiency of TripAdvisor's competitive significance in the online travel agency market in addition to TripAdvisor's ability to counteract alleged harms of a combination of Expedia/Orbitz as key factors in DOJ's willingness to litigate,"