StubHub May Be Breaking Consumer Laws, U.K.’s CMA Says
U.K.’s CMA Says Stubhub May Be Breaking Consumer Laws
(Bloomberg) -- StubHub isn’t complying with commitments to make changes to its U.K. ticket re-sale website, the Competition and Markets Authority said as it threatened to take legal action against the company.
StubHub has failed to adequately warn people that tickets may not get them into an event and using misleading messages about ticket availability, the agency said Wednesday in a statement. The internet ticket exchange is also targeting U.K. consumers with events listed on overseas versions of its websites, which may not comply with U.K. law, and has failed to ensure people know exactly where they will sit.
StubHub responded to the CMA’s original concerns, and the agency said it expects changes to be made swiftly following its latest comments. The agency said it will consider taking action through the courts if it’s not appeased. The consumer agency’s chief executive officer said the case backs its call for increased power to follow up on promises made by companies.
“StubHub had previously committed to make important changes to the information on its site, so anyone buying a ticket would know what they were getting before parting with their money,” the CMA’s Andrea Bellicose said in the statement. “It’s therefore unacceptable that we have now found these concerns.”
StubHub said it had passed a compliance audit in 2019 after making changes requested following a CMA probe a year earlier.
“The CMA has now made additional asks,” Wayne Grierson, a regional manager for StubHub in the U.K., said in a statement. “We remain in open dialogue with the CMA to address both these new asks and any remaining valid concerns about disclosure of information on our site.”
The CMA is also continuing to monitor Viagogo, another resale site that agreed to buy StubHub from eBay last year. The agency said the latest independent review of the firm’s compliance with a court order didn’t find concerns about the site’s compliance with a court order.
“While we cannot speak for StubHub, as the transaction is not yet complete, we can confirm that Viagogo has been working closely with the CMA in the U.K. and the website is fully compliant,” the company said in an emailed statement. “This was confirmed by an independent auditor earlier this week.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Elser in London at celser@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Amy Thomson, Jonathan Browning
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.