The Czech Republic's biggest e-shop Alza.cz has to apologize to the Czech Republic's biggest price and products comparison website Heureka.cz

First instance court (Municipal Court in Prague) decided that Alza.cz, who is the biggest e-shop in the Czech Republic, has to formally apologize to Heureka.cz, the biggest price and products comparison service in the Czech Republic, for the allegation that Heureka is risky and disadvantageous for shops advertising their business via Heureka’s website. Alza is further obliged to stop disseminating such information and it is also obliged to give up the domain bezheureky.cz (it literally means “without heureka”). The decision is not yet enforceable since Alza appealed it.

Alza and Heureka have a common history in this regard. Alza terminated its engagement with Heureka in 2016 following Heureka’s acquisition by Rockaway e-commerce group. Alza argued that by such acquisition Heureka no longer offers an independent comparison since Rockaway group owns also one of the biggest Czech e-shops Mall.cz (direct competitor of Alza) and that Heureka is a paid private service (thus naturally not being independent). At the same time, Alza also encouraged other e-shops to leave Heureka. However, it is quite tricky for other e-shops to decide to leave Heureka since on the one hand it is a significant source of revenue and new customers for e-shops (in particular for smaller ones not as famous as Alza), but on the other hand such e-shops lose certain part of their mark-up to Heureka. For this, the relationship between Heureka and e-shops advertised by it is similar to the relationship between Booking.com and the hotels advertised by it.