WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) – The chair of the Federal Commerce Fee, Lina Khan, on Tuesday mentioned big firms like Ticketmaster (LYV.N), which faces a tsunami of criticism for issues in promoting tickets to a 2023 Taylor Swift tour, can turn out to be “too massive to care.”
Talking on the Wall Road Journal’s CEO Council Summit, Khan mentioned it was the Justice Division that authorised the merger of Ticketmaster and Reside Nation in 2010 and referenced a report that the division had a probe below manner.
“There could be considerations that when corporations turn out to be (massive) they’ll turn out to be too massive to care,” she added, saying big corporations might really feel no must put money into innovation as a result of they don’t face powerful competitors.
“There’s been public reporting that the Justice Division continues to take a look at this and I am positive it is high of thoughts for them, given all of the incoming that they are getting,” she added.
Ticketmaster has drawn recent warmth from U.S. lawmakers over the way it dealt with ticket gross sales for Swift’s first tour in 5 years.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee wrote to Michael Rapino, chief govt of Ticketmaster mother or father Reside Nation, to boost considerations in regards to the chaos within the Taylor Swift ticket sale and to request a briefing for employees on charges, dynamic pricing, ticket availability and transferability and scalping.
There can even be a congressional listening to, possible this month, on the debacle in November when Ticketmaster put tickets on sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, and a few followers struggled for hours with the ticket sale web site.
Final month, U.S. lawmakers pressed the FTC to implement a 2016 regulation towards ticket scalpers utilizing bots after Ticketmaster blamed the software program for troubles promoting tickets to Swift’s tour.
Ticketmaster has blamed issues with presale ticketing for the tour on unprecedented demand and an effort to maintain out bots run by ticket scalpers.
For her half, Swift has mentioned it was “excruciating” for her to observe followers wrestle to safe tickets and that she had been assured that Ticketmaster might deal with massive demand.
Neither Ticketmaster nor the Justice Division instantly responded to requests for remark.
Khan additionally mentioned that the FTC was not investigating cryptocurrency agency FTX, whose dramatic collapse sparked fears of contagion and prompted requires extra crypto regulation. learn extra
Reporting by Diane Bartz; Modifying by Cynthia Osterman and David Gregorio
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