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Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's CEO
Council Summit, Khan said it was the Justice Department that
approved the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2010 and
referenced a report that the department had a probe under way.
"There can be concerns that when firms become (large) they can
become too big to care," she added, saying giant firms may feel
no need to invest in innovation because they do not face tough
competition.
"There's been public reporting that the Justice Department
continues to look at this and I'm sure it's top of mind for
them, given all the incoming that they're getting," she added.
Ticketmaster has drawn fresh heat from U.S. lawmakers over how
it handled ticket sales for Swift's first tour in five years.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House
Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Michael Rapino, chief
executive of Ticketmaster parent Live Nation, to raise concerns
about the chaos in the Taylor Swift ticket sale and to request a
briefing for staff on fees, dynamic pricing, ticket availability
and transferability and scalping.
There will also be a congressional hearing, likely this month,
on the debacle in November when Ticketmaster put tickets on sale
for Taylor Swift's Eras tour, and some fans struggled for hours
with the ticket sale website.
Last month, U.S. lawmakers pressed the FTC to enforce a 2016 law
against ticket scalpers using bots after Ticketmaster blamed the
software for troubles selling tickets to Swift's tour.
Ticketmaster has blamed problems with presale ticketing for the
tour on unprecedented demand and an effort to keep out bots run
by ticket scalpers.
For her part, Swift has said it was "excruciating" for her to
watch fans struggle to secure tickets and that she had been
assured that Ticketmaster could handle large demand.
Neither Ticketmaster nor the Justice Department immediately
responded to requests for comment.
Khan also said that the FTC was not investigating cryptocurrency
firm FTX, whose dramatic collapse sparked fears of contagion and
prompted calls for more crypto regulation.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and David
Gregorio)
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