Juridique et Administratif

🛏 A Saint-Malo, a woman's legal battle against a neighboring hotel over laundry odor started in 2005. Her complaint about not enjoying her seaside second home led to a 2016 agreement for the hotel to use fragrance-free detergent. In 2021, she claimed the deal was violated, seeking €6,000 in damages. After being rejected by lower courts due to the statute of limitations, her appeal was dismissed by the Cour de cassation on July 11, 2022. Her fight with the hotel is now legally concluded.

💸 Booking fined a record-breaking €413.2 million by Spain's CNMC for abusing its dominant position, by imposing unfair terms on Spanish hotels and restricting competition from other online travel agencies, violating European law. Two fines of €206.6 million each were imposed: one for unfair conditions on hotels, and the other for restrictions on other agencies.

🛡 The article discusses illegal employment practices, focusing on irregular accumulation of jobs in France, which violates maximum working hours as per the Labor Code (article L8261-1). The legal maximum is 10 hours per day and 48 hours per week, or 44 hours averaged over 12 weeks. Employers must ensure employees do not exceed this, even with multiple contracts. Exceptions include scientific, literary, artistic work, voluntary aid, household tasks, or emergency work. Employers can include exclusivity clauses in contracts under certain conditions but not for part-time contracts. Violations can result in fines of €1,500, doubling to €3,000 for repeat offenses (articles R8262-1 and R8262-2).

🧬 "The official version of the 'Guide de bonnes pratiques d’hygiène restaurateur' was published in November 2015, available on the French Ministry of Agriculture's website. A printed version sold on Amazon is outdated and should not be used. For guidance and adherence to hygiene rules, refer only to the November 2015 edition. Contact GHR's legal service in case of doubts.

💻 Amélie Logre joined the Legal Department of GHR on May 13, specializing in IT law, after earning a Master in intellectual property law from Nantes Université and working for La Poste in Paris. The GHR addresses digital transformation challenges in the HCR sector, often constrained by financial and human resources. The GHR, a member of HOTREC and a founding member of Reform BnB, has been influential in European regulation, securing a condemnation of Booking.com and Expedia for over €400,000 and contributing to the Macron Law. The GHR also achieved the elimination of a tax advantage for furnished tourist accommodations before the Conseil d'État in 2024.

🛑 Crises such as cyberattacks, media scandals, and disasters can threaten a company's survival, necessitating rapid, efficient response strategies to minimize negative impacts. Crisis management involves prevention, preparation, intervention, and recovery, with emphasis on communication and stakeholder safety. Successful examples include Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol crisis, Airbnb's privacy violation, and United Airlines' overbooking issue. Online reputation monitoring can help anticipate crises, where Guest Suite offers tools for vigilance, satisfaction analysis, and automated feedback solicitation to improve and control online reputation for long-term resilience.

📊 Gabriel Attal, representing the incumbent government, announced a "pact of action" aimed at aligning short-stay rental taxation with long-term rental taxation, confirming a legislative intent held by various political groups excluding the extremes. The Annaïg Le Meur report, made public yesterday, suggests significant cuts in tax benefits for short-term furnished rentals. The measures included in the pact could lead to the end of the fiscal niche for short-term rentals, indicating an impending policy change post-2024.

🌿 La loi Egalim du 30 octobre 2018 vise à équilibrer les relations commerciales dans les secteurs agricole et alimentaire. Depuis 2020, une réduction de 50% du gaspillage alimentaire est visée pour 2025, avec des mesures comme les dons obligatoires pour les cuisines centrales préparant plus de 3 000 repas par jour. Dès janvier 2022, les menus scolaires doivent comprendre 50% de produits durables, dont 20% bio. La loi Egalim 2 du 6 mars 2024 impose l'affichage de la provenance des viandes en restauration commerciale et la suppression de vaisselle jetable en plastique depuis le 1er janvier 2021.

🚷 The French Ministry of Labor emphasizes the health risks of working in heat and the increased risk of work accidents. Employers must include thermal risks in their risk assessment documents, renew workplace air, provide fresh drinking water, and offer heat protection or cooling means. In "vigilance rouge" alerts, employers should reassess risks daily, adjust workloads, schedules, and potentially halt work if conditions are too risky. Employees are advised to monitor temperatures, hydrate, wear light clothing, protect their heads, pace their work, and avoid alcohol. Non-compliance by employers can lead to action by labor inspection services or the Social and Economic Committee (CSE).

📌 European regulations discourage "card not present" transactions in the hospitality industry to protect both buyers and hoteliers from risks like "PAN manual" fraud. The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) in Europe aims to secure digital payments through Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) which requires at least two verification elements, such as a PIN, phone number, or biometric data. Payment gateways integrated with a Property Management System (PMS) like Wubook's Zak provide secure and compliant transaction processing, eliminating the risks associated with manual card number entry and reducing the chances of chargebacks.