Tourism Law in Europe

11 toward the third party, the traveller. 48 In Danish legislation pertaining to agency, the retailer is undoubtedly an ‘agent’ according to the general use of the term. This covers a set of rules stating that an intermediary - who is serving a principal - can conclude an agreement with at third party who then also commits itself to the principal. 49 As noted above, the law of intermediaries rests on an agent/principal relation (agent used in a broad sense) where it is not the retailer but the organiser who is bound by the contract and thus the organiser is liable to the traveller. Consequently, any legal claims or remedies in the case of non-performance must be directed against the trader and not against the retailer. 5.2.2. Is the retailer never party to the contract? As noted, the basis of Danish law regarding intermediaries (and thus also retailers acting as platform intermediaries) is that they are only acting on behalf of another party, typically the performance debtor who offers in casu a tourism service via the digital platform. Hence, the intermediary is therefore not regarded as a liability subject to the performance creditor, and claims resulting from a breach of contract must be directed by the performance creditor against the performance debtor and not against the intermediary in accordance with the general principle of contractual relativity. However, this starting point has been challenged by a supreme court decision concerning the online platform GoLeif.dk 50,51 , which acts as retailer (intermediary) where you can find airline tickets to locations all over the world. Via the platform, customers can compare prices from multiple airlines and proceed to ticket purchasing immediately. Since it was only a purchase of airline tickets, the purchase was outside the scope of the Package Travel Directive. In its ruling, the Danish Eastern Regional Court, contrary to the ruling of the District Court of Roskilde, stated that the GoLeif.dk platform was directly liable to a person who in a consumer capacity had bought two flights from Copenhagen to Nice, 48 Regarding the law of intermediaries, see for instance LYNGE ANDERSEN, L. and MADSEN P. B., Aftaler og mellemmænd, (7.th edn, Karnov Group 2017.), chapter 4, especially p. 274 ff. 49 A commercial agent can act solely as the commercial link between the vendor and the purchaser. Moreover, it can even have power of attorney to conclude the contract with a third party. 50 Forbrugerombudsmanden som mandatar for Martin Windfeld Velin v Den Danske Rejsegruppe filial af Svenska Resegruppen AB U.2016.1062 Ø. 51 The ruling of the Danish Eastern Regional Court (reference in the Danish Weekly Law Journal U.2016.1062OE) is in line with the ruling by European Court of Justice in C-149/15 Wathelet.