Ryanair can continue 'screen-scraping' case despite French and Spanish decisions, court rules
High Court Reporters
Ryanair is entitled to fight its long-running case against "screen-scraping" by online travel company eDreams thanks to technological and material changes since the matter was dealt with in Spanish and French courts, the High Court ruled.
Ryanair sued eDreams Odigeo SA and Vacaciones eDreams SL (VESL) claiming, among other things,the defendants were unlawfully using its flight information and engaging in a variety of economic wrongs involving screen-scraping” type activities and wrongfully selling Ryanair flights through eDreams web platforms.
The defendants claimed the Ryanair case had already been dealt with in Spain and France and was therefore "res judicata", a legal doctrine which prohibits reopening matters already dealt with between the parties by a competent court.
Judge Oisín Quinn, in a judgment, found the Ryanair action was not res judicata.
He was satisfied that there were principal material facts and changes in circumstances that sufficiently distinguish the Irish proceedings from the earlier Spanish and French proceedings.
He said the evidence indicated that the Ryanair website has undergone fundamental changes in its operation from an “open” website to a “closed” system with the introduction of mandatory acceptance of Terms of Use and the requirement for a named user account and the deployment of technological measures designed to prevent automated access.
Earlier, the judge said Ryanair's case in France was dismissed in its entirety on appeal.
The Spanish courts held that Ryanair had not implemented sufficient technological measures to control access to the site or acceptance of the terms and therefore could not establish a contractual relationship with VESL based on website navigation alone.
Arguments about unlawful competition or that VESL's activities caused consumer confusion were rejected by the Spanish courts.
In its Irish case, Ryanair says the factual, technological, contractual and commercial environment has fundamentally changed since the Spanish and French proceedings, such that the issues now before the Irish court are not the issues previously determined.
It says that a key feature of the Spanish judgments was the finding that the Ryanair website operated as a "free and open access system" without effective technological restrictions on access or use.
Ryanair says that factual premise no longer exists and its website is now protected by an anti-bot system and other technological barriers..
It also says that eDreams no longer operates as the same type of intermediary that featured in the earlier litigation.
It says that previously consumers were redirected and various booking functions were completed through Ryanair but eDreams now completes the booking process differently and online travel agents now allegedly pay Ryanair directly for flights and provide their own contact details to Ryanair.
Ryanair also places considerable reliance on the launch of "eDreams Prime" in 2017 which it says is now responsible for a substantial proportion of eDreams’ revenue
eDreams did not dispute that there have been changes but contended, among other things, that they are either not material or that Ryanair had brought them about unilaterally.
eDreams argued that minor or inconsequential changes unilaterally introduced to avoid a party being caught by res judicata should not be considered sufficient as it would enable a party to circumvent the doctrine in a way that would undermine its purpose.
The judge said that, leaving aside the introduction of the eDreams Prime service, the fact that Ryanair may have “unilaterally” introduced changes does not preclude those changes from “materially altering the landscape” in which the new proceedings are brought in a relevant way for the purposes of the res judicata doctrine.
He said many of the allegations now made depend upon facts, technologies, business practices and legal developments that either did not exist or had not crystallised at the time of the French and Spanish proceedings.
These changes also mean that it would not be just to determine that Ryanair “could and should” have raised the claims now made in the earlier proceedings, he said.
He was satisfied that the defendants have failed to establish the essential requirements of res judicata, or alternatively, abuse of process.
