Taylor Swift ticket snafu caused by Ticketmaster abusing its market power, Senate antitrust chair says - CNN

New York CNN Business  — 

Senator Amy Klobuchar criticized Ticketmaster in an unfastened missive to its CEO, saying she has “serious concerns” astir the company’s operations pursuing a service meltdown Tuesday that near Taylor Swift fans irate.

In the missive to CEO Michael Rapino, the Democrat from Minnesota and seat of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee connected Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, wrote that complaints from Swift fans incapable to bargain tickets for her upcoming tour, successful summation to disapproval astir precocious fees, suggests that the institution “continues to abuse its marketplace positions.”

“Ticketmaster’s powerfulness successful the superior summons marketplace insulates it from the competitory pressures that typically propulsion companies to innovate and amended their services. That tin effect successful the types of melodramatic work failures we saw this week, wherever consumers are the ones that wage the price,” Klobuchar wrote.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation, the country’s largest performance promoter, merged astir a decennary ago. Klobuchar noted that the institution astatine the clip pledged to “develop an easy-access, one-stop platform” for summons delivery. On Thursday, the legislator told Rapino that it “appears that your assurance was misplaced.”

“When Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation successful 2010, it was taxable to an antitrust consent decree that prohibited it from abusing its marketplace position,” Klobuchar wrote. “Nonetheless, determination person been galore complaints astir your company’s compliance with that decree.”

The missive includes a database of questions for Rapino to reply by adjacent week. Ticketmaster did not instantly respond to a petition for remark from CNN Business.

On Tuesday, the institution said “there has been historically unprecedented request with millions showing up” to bargain tickets for Swift’s circuit and thanked fans for their “patience.”

Klobuchar is the latest high-profile person to openly criticize Ticketmaster for the ticketing catastrophe that near atrocious humor betwixt Swift fans and the company.

“@Ticketmaster’s excessive hold times and fees are wholly unacceptable, arsenic seen with today’s @taylorswift13 tickets, and are a grounds of a larger problem. It’s nary concealed that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly,” Rep. David Cicilline, presently the president of the Antitrust Subcommittee, tweeted connected Tuesday.

“Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is simply a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should ne'er person been approved, and they request to beryllium reined in,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Complaints astir the company’s monopoly powerfulness spell backmost long, agelong earlier Tuesday’s summons problems, erstwhile the level appeared to clang oregon frost during presale purchases for Swift’s latest tour.

In 1994, erstwhile Taylor Swift was lone 4 years old and summons acquisition queues were successful idiosyncratic oregon connected the phone, not online, the stone radical Pearl Jam filed a ailment with the Justice Department’s antitrust part asserting that Ticketmaster has a “virtually implicit monopoly connected the organisation of tickets to concerts.” It tried to publication its circuit lone astatine venues that didn’t usage Ticketmaster.

The Justice Department and galore authorities attorneys wide person made akin complaints implicit the years.

Despite those concerns, Ticketmaster continued to turn much dominant. Pearl Jam’s ailment was softly dismissed. The Justice Department and states allowed the Live Nation Ticketmaster merger to spell done contempt a 2010 tribunal filing successful the lawsuit raising objections to the merger. In the filing, the Justice Department said that Ticketmaster’s stock among large performance venues exceeded 80%.

– CNN Business’ Chris Isidore contributed to this report.