{"id":266898,"date":"2026-01-27T18:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266898\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:07:10","slug":"daa-faces-high-court-hearing-on-anti-competitive-car-hire-claims-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266898\/","title":{"rendered":"DAA faces High Court hearing on \u2018anti-competitive\u2019 car hire claims \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An online car hire company\u2019s long-running dispute with DAA <\/a>over its ability to pick up and drop off customers at Dubin Airport<\/a> is set to be heard in the High Court from Tuesday. <\/p>\n

ER Travel Ltd, which trades under the name Easirent, sued DAA seven years ago for damages over a refusal by the airport operator to allow it to collect its customers at the airport and take them to its offices 2km away to pick up their rentals. <\/p>\n

In May 2019, ER Travel requested an injunction to allow them to continue to use a pickup area at the airport to collect customers, pending the hearing of the case in full, but Mr Justice Tony O\u2019Connor did not grant this.*<\/p>\n

Court records show that the case has been the subject of a number of affidavits, motions and adjournments in the intervening years. It will be heard by Mr Justice Max Barrett and is expected to last a number of weeks. <\/p>\n

ER Travel, which was established in Ireland in 2015, has claimed that the DAA\u2019s restriction breaches both Irish competition law and the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. <\/p>\n

The airport operator hosts a number of car rental companies on its premises in Dublin under licensed agreements \u2013 including Hertz, Europcar, Avis and Sixt \u2013 for a fee. <\/p>\n

ER Travel received a number of \u201ccease and desist\u201d letters from DAA from 2016 for allegedly carrying out unlicensed business activity at the airport. These were followed by Swords District Court summonses, which were subsequently struck out, according to documents relating to the injunction hearing in 2019. <\/p>\n

The company has alleged that DAA\u2019s use of its own bylaws from 2014 \u2013 which allows the State-owned company to prohibit the use of the airport for business purposes other than when it gives permission \u2013 is anticompetitive in this case. <\/p>\n

Counsel for ER Travel said in an initial injunction hearing in 2019 that the DAA\u2019s actions were anticompetitive and were being carried out because his client, unlike other car hire companies, does not operate out of Dublin Airport and does not have a licence agreement with the DAA.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Hearing date set for Kenny Jacobs\u2019s High Court action against DAAOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for DAA, which is represented by James Doherty SC, under instruction from solicitors McCann FitzGerald, declined to comment. ER Travel\u2019s solicitor, John Hennessy of Hennessy Perrozzi in Dublin, also declined to comment. Noel Travers SC is leading the company\u2019s case before the court. <\/p>\n

ER Travel, owned by British businessman Paul Hanley, is part of a group of companies that offers online car rental services in Ireland, the US and UK under the Easirent brand. The original UK business was founded in 1999 but sold in 2021. <\/p>\n

The hearings will be taking place as DAA also prepares for a High Court hearing<\/a> early next month on a case taken by its chief executive, Kenny Jacobs<\/a>, who is seeking to lift his suspension by the group. <\/p>\n

Mr Jacobs initiated the action earlier this month after he was suspended by the company in <\/a>December<\/a>, pending a new investigation into 20 allegations made against him.<\/p>\n

The chief executive was previously the subject of two formal complaints, which were made last year, but the complaints were not upheld after an investigation by Mark Connaughton SC.<\/p>\n

In the proceedings now before Mr Justice Brian Cregan, Mr Jacobs is seeking his return to work and declarations that the DAA board has prejudged his removal from office.<\/p>\n

*This article was amended to correct the 2019 ruling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An online car hire company\u2019s long-running dispute with DAA over its ability to pick up and drop off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,10725,11900,131222,131221,73,61,60,12844],"class_list":{"0":"post-266898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-daa","10":"tag-dublin-airport","11":"tag-europcar","12":"tag-hertz","13":"tag-high-court","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-kenny-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}