\n<\/p>\n
The UK competition watchdog has written to Ticketmaster threatening legal action over the way it sold more than 900,000 tickets for Oasis\u2019s reunion tour, days before the start of what is expected to be the most popular, and profitable, run of gigs in British history.<\/p>\n
In March, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published concerns that Ticketmaster may have misled fans, some of whom paid more than \u00a3350 for tickets with a face value of \u00a3150, in the way it priced tickets for the band\u2019s comeback gigs when they went on sale last August.<\/p>\n
In response, Ticketmaster said it had made changes to \u201csome aspects\u201d of its ticket sales process. However, the CMA said that they were not sufficient to address its concerns.<\/p>\n
The CMA told Ticketmaster the voluntary undertakings it would accept to address its concerns.<\/p>\n
In a letter to the business and trade select committee \u2013 which has been investigating ticket pricing, competition and consumer protection \u2013 the CMA said it received a response from Ticketmaster this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving carefully considered Ticketmaster\u2019s response, the CMA\u2019s view is that there is a fundamental disagreement \u2026 about whether Ticketmaster\u2019s practices infringed consumer law,\u201d the CMA said in a section of its submission relating to the Oasis investigation, published on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTicketmaster has declined to provide undertakings in the terms sought by the CMA or indicate whether there is a form of undertakings which it would be prepared to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CMA is concerned that the ticketing company may have breached consumer protection law by labelling certain seats as \u201cplatinum\u201d, and selling them for almost 2.5 times the price of standard equivalent tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer any additional benefits and were often located in the same area of a stadium as standard tickets.<\/p>\n
The regulator also said fans were not informed there were two categories of standing tickets at different prices, with many waiting lengthy periods in online queues without understanding they would be paying much higher prices than they expected.<\/p>\n
It also said that while it had not found evidence that Ticketmaster used an algorithmic \u201cdynamic\u201d pricing model during the Oasis sale it was concerned that consumers were \u201cnot given clear and timely information about how the pricing of standing tickets would work\u201d.<\/p>\n
The CMA said that the failure of the consultation process with Ticketmaster meant that it was now in a position to look at taking legal action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CMA has written to Ticketmaster to confirm that it has now discharged its obligation to consult with Ticketmaster and, given that no undertakings have been offered or agreed, is now preparing to litigate the matter if necessary,\u201d it said in the letter.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n
Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe CMA will, in parallel, continue to engage with Ticketmaster in an effort to secure a voluntary resolution, should it indicate a clear and timely commitment to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n The tour, which reunites Noel and Liam Gallagher after years of fractious relations, will kick off on Friday in Cardiff.<\/p>\n Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert at Which?, said: \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing to see the CMA has still not obtained the necessary promises from Ticketmaster that it will not breach consumer law in future.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the much-anticipated Oasis tour kicking off on Friday, it\u2019s crucial that the CMA acts quickly to send a clear signal that any possible breaches of the law won\u2019t be tolerated. Too much harm has already been done to fans who paid over the odds last year.\u201d<\/p>\n Ticketmaster has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UK competition watchdog has written to Ticketmaster threatening legal action over the way it sold more than 900,000 tickets for Oasis\u2019s reunion tour, days before the start of what is expected to be the most popular, and profitable, run of gigs in British history. In March, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published concerns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[919,2885,2883,324,2884,2881,2882,899,2880,2178,2019],"class_list":{"0":"post-10098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-authority","10":"tag-competition","11":"tag-legal","12":"tag-markets","13":"tag-oasis","14":"tag-sold","15":"tag-threatens","16":"tag-ticketmaster","17":"tag-tickets","18":"tag-watchdog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}