Legislation relevant to secondary selling
UK Legislation
40. Under section 166 of the Criminal Justice and
Public Order Act 1994 (as amended) it is a criminal offence for
an unauthorised person to sell or otherwise dispose of a ticket
for a designated football match, which covers the vast majority
of professional football matches played in England and Wales or
featuring professional English and Welsh clubs and national representative
teams playing abroad. The legislation was introduced following
the Hillsborough disaster as a public order and safety measure,
to ensure that fans of different teams are segregated. There is
power to extend this offence by Statutory Instrument to any sporting
events for which more than 6,000 tickets are issued for sale.
Under section 31 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games
Act 2006 it will be an offence to sell an Olympic ticket (without
authorisation from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic
and Paralympic Games) in a public place or in the course of a
business: this will cover acts such as offering or advertising
for sale where the person makes or aims to make a profit. DCMS
said that it had been a formal requirement for the Government
to accept restrictions on secondary sales of tickets for profit
when it elected to bid for the Games.[139]
41. In oral evidence the Rt Hon Shaun Woodward, who
was then the DCMS Minister with responsibility for creative industries
and tourism, told us that the requirement was there because there
would be a huge demand for tickets for Olympic events, which would
be ripe for gross exploitation by the secondary market, and that
careful control of tickets was therefore needed to ensure fair
access.[140] This argument
can, of course, be made for most popular events and certainly
all the top sports tournaments.
42. Street trading without a
licence is an offence and trading standards may take action against
those who buy and sell tickets outside venues. In Scotland, touting
in a public place is an offence under section 55 of the Civic
Government (Scotland) Act 1982, but this offence requires an element
of giving reasonable cause for annoyance. The Glasgow Commonwealth
Games Bill, which was introduced into the Scottish Parliament
on 9 November 2007, and which is required to support the delivery
of the 2014 Games, would prohibit unauthorised sale of Games tickets
in excess of face value. The Explanatory Memorandum states that,
although the Bill cannot make touting activity an offence in other
jurisdictions, it would make touting of tickets for the Games
outside Scotland an offence under Scots law. We note that the
UK Government has agreed in principle to extend to England and
Wales a ban on unauthorised resale of tickets for the Games.[141]
The pre-regulatory impact assessment states:
"Fairness and equity are seen as the first principle of any
ticketing strategy, as outlined in the 'Commonwealth Games Manual:
Ticketing'. Any ticket touting would undermine that principle,
reduce equity of access and erode public confidence in the Games."
The manual also states that "Appropriate regulations should
be put in place to prevent ticket scalping".
43. The Football Association told us that the 1994
Act had been "somewhat successful in marginalising the 'street
touts' around football matches, helping to alleviate the public
order problems caused by touting", but that the 130 convictions
since 2001 represented the tip of an iceberg. and more needed
to be done to enforce the legislation.[142]
The Association added that the Act had greatly assisted and enabled
the law enforcement agencies and the football authorities to work
together to crack down on touting, and that because unauthorised
reselling was an offence, it was easier to persuade courts to
grant injunctions restraining touting, and to persuade virtual
auction sites to take down offers of football tickets.
44. The Price Indications (Resale of Tickets) Regulations
1994 require traders reselling tickets in the course of a business
to provide buyers with all relevant information including face
value of the ticket, location of the seat and any restrictions
which may apply, but these regulations do not apply to consumer-to-consumer
transactions. Accordingly they do not apply to sales between consumers
on internet auction sites, although we were told that some internet
sites do now require sellers to show the face value and more information
about the general location of the ticket and whether there would
be a restricted view.[143]
Overseas legislation
45. The secondary ticket market is not unique to
the UK, and the evidence to the inquiry included references to
problems experienced, and statutory solutions attempted, in Australia
and in the United States, where touting is known as "scalping".
Witnesses told us that long-standing anti-scalping laws were being
relaxed in some American states, such as New York,[144]
while in Queensland new legislation has been passed making it
an offence to resell or buy a ticket for an event at a major sports
facility at a price greater than 10% above the original ticket
price. [145]
The Rt. Hon. Shaun Woodward, then Minister for Creative Industries
and Tourism at DCMS, commented that it was apparent from these
different trends that there was no clear consensus on how to act
and he emphasized that he did not think that there was any simple
resolution.[146] He
also said that the reason why anti-scalping legislation had been
repealed in New York was that the New York Yankees baseball team
wanted to take more control over their own tickets.[147]
Advanced Ticket Services told us that many American states had
recently passed bills to eliminate or ease prevailing restrictions
on the secondary ticket market, and that the resale restrictions
had all been lifted in the face of "overwhelming resistance
from leading sports bodies, music artists and theatre promoters".[148]
46. While
we consider that it would be unwise to assume that problems caused
by ticket touting are necessarily the same worldwide, or that
measures used to ameliorate the problems in one country would
necessarily be effective in another, there may be lessons to be
learned. The different trends now observed in different parts
of the United States and Australia strongly suggest that legislatures
there are seeking to contend with problems whose nature depends
on how touting and national attitudes to it have developed over
the years in those countries. We recommend that DCMS, with the
assistance of the industry, should undertake a comparative analysis
of what problems have arisen in other countries, including other
European countries, what measures (if any) have been introduced
to deal with them, and whether such measures have been regarded
as successful in tackling the problems they were intended to address.
139 Ev 76 Back
140
Q 160 Back
141
HC Deb, 10 December 2007, col. 103W Back
142
Ev 4-6 Back
143
All England Law Tennis Club Ev 10, Mr Alastair McGowan, Head of
Public Affairs, eBay UK Ltd, Q 106 Back
144
eBay Ev 42, viagogo Ev 52, ASTA Ev 54, DCMS/DTI Ev 76, Advanced
Ticket Systems Ev 89, Mr Woodward, Qq 125, 144 Back
145
DCMS Ev 76, Concert Promoters Association Ev 16 Back
146
Q 128 Back
147
Q 144 Back
148
Advanced Ticket Systems Ev 89 Back
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