Expedia Buys Orbitz for $1.6B in Cash

That's a ridiculous argument by their CEO.

That is like saying Microsoft Office only holds a single digit percentage of revenue in the technology sector. It might technically be true, but it is irrelevant. MS Office has a monopolist hold on the office software space.

Monopolies aren't defined by someone who controls an entire sector (a "sector" is arbitrary anyway) it is when one specific company controls one commodity or service (see Google Search, which both the EU and US have called a monopoly).

Expedia absolutely has a monopoly on travel price comparison sites now. However it only becomes an antitrust complaint when they leverage that position into other markets (e.g. like Windows with Internet Explorer, or Google with Google+).

So while I don't think Expedia has broken any laws, yet. I will say that if they started using their newfound position for leverage I'd hope the US and EU governments stepped on them pretty fast.

I can't answer your question directly, but I'm reminded of a story a friend once told. He was a new lawyer at a large firm. He was helping with a large deal and the bank couldn't get a hold of the lawyers listed above him. The bank called him and said "Is this $12.5 million transfer approved?" Do which he said yes, and 1 second later, 12 million dollars was moved from one account to another. So perhaps, with some authorization calls, it is as simple as a wire transfer.

3 weeks ago, Expedia acquired Travelocity for $280M.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/expedia-buys-traveloc...

This Orbitz deal ($1.6B) makes the Travelocity deal ($280M) look cheap.

A simple SWIFT transaction (wire payment) is generally enough, though in order for the actual transaction to move, there are confirmation and settlement procedures. All of which depend on the company and bank policies (for example, American Companies are all by law offered the option to use 4-eye verification processes to prevent a single person from making a tx, two to confirm etc etc).

Giarc's story is the confirmation process, likely being chased down by the back office at the bank as they go through the various procedures that minimize fraud and mistakes involved when moving large sums of cash.

If FX is involved, then they'll likely need to purchase the sum in a different currency (if they do not already have cash in that currency) and use the result to settle in another bank account. For example, an American company purchases 15 million euro to settle in a German bank account that belongs to the purchased.

The catch, in my anecdotal experience, is that third parties have terrible integration with the hotels. In some cases, they fax a reservation using a company credit card, to pay on your behalf. End result is some percent of the time, this gets messed up and you end up dealing with an annoyed person on check in that sometimes ends up having to get the agency on the line to sort it out.

Same for flight bookings. I've never found the attraction of booking through third parties; it only adds a failure point. Maybe small or specialized agencies are the exception, like Amex's travel service (which, I think, used a platform like Expedia's, but they had fantastic phone options and would always go figure stuff out on my behalf.)