Business News Legal Live Business

CMA says StubHub has now dealt with its most recent gripe list

By | Published on Thursday 20 August 2020

StubHub

The UK’s Competition & Markets Authority has announced that StubHub has now addressed its most recent set of concerns about the secondary ticketing website.

The CMA announced in January that it had put StubHub on notice regarding various issues with its site. That was despite StubHub having previously voluntarily complied with a list of demands from the CMA, those being demands which the regulator made of all ticket resale sites to ensure they properly complied with UK consumer rights law.

In a statement yesterday, the CMA said that the most recent issues had now been addressed, and that it is happy that StubHub “is adequately warning people where tickets bought on the UK site may not get them into an event; has removed inaccurate messages about ticket availability; is no longer advertising tickets for overseas events that may not comply with UK consumer law; is ensuring people know exactly where they will sit in a venue; and is taking sufficient steps to ensure that the full addresses of business sellers are displayed”.

The issues the CMA raised in January were all very common gripes regarding ticket resale websites. Though in yesterday’s statement, the regulator also noted that some new issues have arisen regarding secondary ticketing during the COVID-19 crisis, mainly “concerns about cancellations and refunds”.

It added: “If it emerges that consumer protection law is being broken, the CMA will consider whether further action might be necessary to address these issues”.

Actually, in the UK, most complaints regarding refunds on COVID-cancelled events have focused on Viagogo rather than StubHub, although the latter has been sued on that issue in the US.

And, of course, Viagogo and StubHub are technically the same thing now, although the integration of the two companies is yet to go ahead thanks to another CMA investigation, that one specifically on the merger.



READ MORE ABOUT: | |