The American regulator pursues Ticketmaster and Live Nation, alleging illegal resale tactics

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a bipartite general group continued Ticketmaster and its parent company, claiming that they force consumers to pay more to see live events through a variety of illegal tactics.

The FTC said that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, deceived artists and consumers by advertising prices for tickets lower than what consumers have to pay and wrongly pretending to impose strict limits on the number of tickets that consumers can buy for an event.

In reality, the FTC said, Ticketmaster coordinates with the ticket brokers that bypass these ticket limits. The FTC said that brokers use false accounts to buy millions of dollars in tickets, then sell them during a substantial increase on the ticketmaster platform. Ticketmaster benefits from the additional costs he receives with these sales, said the FTC.

The Associated Press contacted Live Nation Entertainment based in California to comment.

Look | Last year, the United States Ministry of Justice tried to break companies:

The United States Ministry of Justice continues to break Ticketmaster / Live Nation

The United States Ministry of Justice continues Live Nation, arguing that its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster led to a monopoly and the company must be broken.

Ticketmaster controls 80% or more from the main ticket office of the main American concert halls, according to the FTC. Consumers spent more than $ 82.6 billion US dollars purchase of ticketmaster between 2019 and 2024, added the agency.

“American Live Entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us. It should not cost an arm and a leg to bring the family to a baseball game or attend the favorite musician program,” said FTC president Andrew Ferguson, in a statement.

The trial was filed before the California central district district court. The attorneys general of Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

Ticketmaster has been in the views of American legislators since 2022, when he has constantly botched ticket sales for the ERA tour of Taylor Swift. The company’s site was overwhelmed by fans and Brokers ‘Bots’ attacks, which picked up tickets to sell on secondary sites. Senators burned live at a hearing in 2023.

But industry reform was slow. Biden administration has taken measures with the ban on junk food costs, forcing Ticketmaster to display the total price of a ticket as soon as consumers are starting to shop. This rule entered into force in May.

President Donald Trump also targeted the industry. In March, Trump signed a leader decree of US officials to ensure that ticket dealers comply with the internal rules of the income service. The prescription also ordered the FTC to “take implementation measures to prevent unfair, misleading and anti -competitive driving on the secondary ticketing market”.

In August, the FTC continued the Maryland -based ticket group, alleging that it used thousands of fictitious ticket accounts and other methods to buy tickets for events, including Swift’s Tour.

Could the Canada Competition Office follow suit?

“Ticketmaster is really a frequent leaflet with regard to these customer deception practices, overcharging and allowing Scalpers to reduce the price of tickets,” said Keldon Bester, executive director based in Ottawa from Canadian anti-monopoly power, a Thant Tank aimed at addressing the power of Monopoly in Canada.

The United States has a stronger tool kit than Canada with regard to consumer protection, according to BESTER. Although the federal level focuses specifically on deceptive marketing tactics, consumer protection laws related to ticket sales are delegated to the provinces, he said.

“A province like Ontario would be well placed to go after this practice, (which) is less a question of deception and more to allow the scalpers to unleash themselves,” said BESTER.

In 2018, the Canada Competition Office continued Ticketmaster, alleging that the company was delivering at “drop by drop” – a practice in which a company misleads consumers on the final price of a product by adding additional costs at a subsequent stage of the payment process.

The office alleged that the company informed the price of tickets at least 20% and, in some cases, 65%. The company never admitted its reprehensible acts, but accepted a regulation of $ 6 million which was finalized last January.

BESTER expects the US trial to take place in the same way in several years, the company aimed at concluding an agreement with the government. The question of whether consumers will be satisfied with the final result is another story.

“They, at each turn, took the opportunity to deceive customers, tighten artists and to make sites,” said BESTER. “It is therefore one of the reasons, among many, that all kinds of regulation or negotiated agreement should not really deliver for consumers.”

A spokesperson for the competition office told CBC News that he was aware of the US trial, but noted that the office is carrying out his work confidentially and cannot confirm if he will launch or launch a similar investigation.