the Court of Cassation confirms the legal responsibility of the platform within the occasion of unlawful subletting | EUROtoday

Airbnb, easy content material host or writer? The Court of Cassation dominated on Wednesday January 7, discovering that the platform could possibly be held liable if Internet customers used its providers for unlawful subletting.

The magistrates of the very best judicial courtroom thought of that “the Airbnb company does not have the status of Internet host because it plays an active role with regard to users, allowing it to be aware of and control the offers placed on its platform”.

“Therefore it does not benefit from the liability exemption granted to hosts and it can be held responsible if Internet users use its platform for illegal subletting”they are saying in a press launch.

The Court of Cassation needed to make clear this level after two contradictory enchantment selections: one in Paris in January 2023, the place the courtroom of enchantment discovered that Airbnb had “contributed greatly” to the offense dedicated by a Parisian tenant who had illegally sublet her lodging. The different, handed down by the Aix en Provence Court of Appeal in September 2023, thought of quite the opposite that the platform was solely a easy content material host, and was due to this fact not co-responsible for a case of unlawful subletting in social housing.

“Airbnb does not play a neutral role with regard to its users”

The Court of Cassation relied specifically on European legislation to resolve. “According to the Court of Justice of the European Union, an Internet host must play the role of a simple “intermediary” by limiting itself to offering in a impartial method a purely technical and computerized service for storing and making out there the information offered by its clients. The Internet host due to this fact performs no lively function within the processing of this knowledge: neither information nor management is entrusted to it.remembers the Court of Cassation.

Gold, “Airbnb does not play a neutral role with regard to its users. It interferes in the relationship between “hosts” and “travelers”: by requiring them to comply with a algorithm (when publishing the advert or transaction) which it is ready to confirm compliance with; by selling sure presents by attributing the standard of “superhost”, thus exerting an affect on person habits”.

Concretely, the judgment of the Aix Court of Appeal is overturned, the case is shipped again, whereas, within the Paris case, the Court of Cassation cancels the tremendous (32,399.61 euros) that Airbnb and the tenant needed to pay and sends the case again on this level, understanding that they’d been ordered to pay a tremendous of 58,000 euros in first occasion.

“The culmination of ten years of battle”

“The legal proceedings continue in these two cases and we are determined to explore all possible avenues of appeal so that French case law reflects the European principles of platform regulation”Airbnb reacted to Agence France-Presse (AFP), estimating that “these decisions are contrary to European law”. The platform additionally ensures that it applies “a zero tolerance policy” for circumstances of unlawful subletting “brought to our attention, going as far as removing the advertisements concerned”.

Jonathan Bellaïche, lawyer for the aggrieved Parisian proprietor, greets “a major jurisprudential step in clarifying the liability regime applicable to digital platforms”. He believes that “this could have the effect of making Airbnb co-responsible for any abuse that may occur on their platform”.

“This is the culmination of ten years of battle”he rejoices to the AFP, making certain that he defended for the primary time an proprietor who was the sufferer of subletting on Airbnb in 2016, and “it will change a lot of things in the balance of power”he continues.

The lawyer had already obtained recognition of writer standing for Abritel in 2024. He additionally ordered Airbnb to pay an 8.2 million euro tremendous for “serious breaches” to the gathering of vacationer tax in 2021 and 2022 on the island of Oléron (Charente-Maritime), then Booking.com (574,000 euros tremendous) and Leboncoin (410,000 euros) for a similar causes.