The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal by Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which face class-action lawsuits in multiple provinces for allegedly profiting from third-party ticket reselling. Ticketmaster tickets and gift cards are shown at a box office in San Jose, Calif., on May 11, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Paul Sakuma
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal by Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which face class-action lawsuits in multiple provinces for allegedly profiting from third-party ticket reselling.
The case stems from allegations Ticketmaster facilitated mass ticket scalping in breach of its own terms of use and policy, allowing resellers to use automated “ticket bots” to scoop up event tickets beyond limits it imposes on individual buyers.
The class-action lawsuit filed in B.C. was one of five launched against the companies in 2018 after media reports about Ticketmaster’s activity in the secondary ticket market.
The class in British Columbia claims Ticketmaster wrongfully profited by facilitating ticket reselling, while falsely claiming that members of the public would have a “fair opportunity” to buy tickets at their face-value rather than at inflated markups.
In its submissions to the Supreme Court of Canada, Ticketmaster argued that its purchase policy and terms of use were agreements with individuals who used the company’s website to buy tickets, rather than “representations” to the public at-large.
The company claimed the B.C. Court of Appeal got it wrong when it allowed the class-action to move forward by turning a “consumer contract into a promise to a market at-large.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2024
