Billboard (12/02/19) Smirke, Richard

The FanFair Alliance has filed a complaint with Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over Viagogo's proposed $4 billion acquisition of StubHub. "We would urge the CMA to conduct an investigation into this proposed merger and its potential implications for U.K. consumers and live event industry," wrote FanFair campaign manager Adam Webb in a letter to the regulator. FanFair has long opposed and campaigned against online ticket scalping, often targeting Viagogo because of the company's controversial business practices and consumer grievances. The alliance said a phase 1 inquiry into the proposed StubHub deal is necessary, as a merger would grant Viagogo a monopoly on secondary ticketing in the U.K. "This would, we believe, inevitably lead to even higher fees for consumers, and an even greater dominance of search and social media advertising — increasing the risk of consumers being led needlessly towards inflated tickets in the secondary market, and away from authorized primary ticket agents," Webb contended. Viagogo and StubHub are the only two major for-profit secondary ticket platforms still operational in Britain after Ticketmaster closed its resale sites and set up a fan-to-fan ticket exchange. A Viagogo spokesperson declared that "Viagogo expects the market regulator to look at this deal as they would with any deal of this size and we will be working with them collaboratively on that as required."

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