A Canadian federal judge has dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster, ruling that the country’s federal drip-pricing laws do not require ticket sellers to advertise a single, all-inclusive price when mandatory fees are clearly disclosed alongside the ticket price.
In a Sept. 22 decision, Federal Court Justice Denis Gascon rejected claims that Ticketmaster’s separately displayed order processing fee violated Canada’s Competition Act. The court concluded that disclosing mandatory charges simultaneously with an advertised price does not constitute prohibited drip pricing, even when consumers must add the amounts together to determine their total cost.
The ruling in Kuling v. Ticketmaster L.L.C., 2026 FC 1185, establishes a distinction between prohibited drip pricing, in which fees are concealed and subsequently revealed during the purchasing process, and what the court called “partitioned” or “segmented” pricing, where fees are displayed separately but simultaneously.
“Both the Order Processing Fee and the face value price for the tickets are displayed simultaneously, in close proximity to one another and in plain sight,” Gascon wrote, concluding that Ticketmaster’s pricing practices did not fall within the conduct prohibited by the federal statute.
The decision represents a significant legal victory for Ticketmaster, which has previously paid millions of dollars to resolve Canadian proceedings involving allegedly misleading ticket pricing. However, the ruling does not eliminate separate provincial requirements for all-inclusive ticket pricing.
A $2.50 Fee at the Center of the Lawsuit
The case originated with a November 2023 ticket purchase by Kamaria Kuling, who bought two tickets to a comedy show through Ticketmaster.
Each ticket carried a face value of CA$74.50, bringing the combined face value to CA$149. However, Kuling ultimately paid CA$190 after Ticketmaster added a CA$29.50 service fee, a CA$9 facility charge and a CA$2.50 order processing fee.
Kuling filed suit in January 2024, alleging that Ticketmaster’s pricing representations violated Canada’s Competition Act because the tickets could not be purchased at the initially displayed prices without paying additional mandatory fees.
The proposed class action sought damages on behalf of Canadian consumers who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster’s online platforms and paid an order processing fee on or after June 23, 2022.
The original complaint challenged multiple charges, including service fees, facility charges, delivery fees and order processing fees. However, on Jan. 13, 2025, just one day before the certification hearing began, Kuling’s attorneys informed the court they were abandoning their challenges to all fees except the order processing charge.
That decision substantially narrowed the case, leaving the CA$2.50 charge as the only disputed fee in Kuling’s purchase.
The court examined screenshots of Ticketmaster’s purchasing process and found that the company’s event pages already incorporated service fees, facility charges and applicable taxes into the displayed individual ticket prices.
The order processing fee was handled differently. Rather than being incorporated into the individual ticket price, a notice near the top of the event page disclosed that an additional processing fee of up to a specified amount could apply to each order.
According to the court, the notice appeared in bold text immediately above the advertised ticket price, without requiring customers to scroll, click through additional pages or search for fine print. The total order price, including the processing fee, was then displayed after purchasers selected their tickets and before proceeding to checkout.
Gascon determined that the placement and visibility of the fee meant Ticketmaster was not concealing an additional charge.
“Ordinary purchasers are capable of basic arithmetic,” the judge wrote, finding that consumers could determine the full purchase price from the information presented on the same screen.
The court also found that Kuling failed to plead sufficient facts establishing that the alleged pricing representation was material to consumers’ purchasing decisions. Gascon noted that the disputed processing fee represented less than 2% of the total amount Kuling paid.
Court Draws a Line Between Drip Pricing and Itemized Fees
At the center of the decision was the interpretation of amendments to Canada’s Competition Act enacted in 2022.
The legislation expressly identifies drip pricing as a false or misleading representation when a seller advertises a price that cannot be attained because of additional fixed mandatory charges, except certain government-imposed fees.
Kuling argued that the law effectively required all-inclusive pricing, meaning that any advertised amount excluding an obligatory charge would violate the statute.
Ticketmaster countered that the law prohibits concealing mandatory fees and introducing them later in the transaction, but does not prohibit displaying the components of a purchase price separately.
Gascon agreed with Ticketmaster.
The judge identified two defining features of prohibited drip pricing: concealment of mandatory fees and their sequential disclosure during the purchasing process.
By contrast, partitioned pricing involves displaying a base price and additional charges as separate amounts. The court determined that this practice does not violate the federal drip-pricing provisions when all mandatory price components are clearly presented together.
“Drip pricing is a subset of the more general practice of partitioned pricing,” Gascon wrote. “But partitioned pricing does not necessarily amount to drip pricing, notably when the segmented prices are presented to the purchaser simultaneously.”
The court also examined differences between the English and French versions of the federal legislation, concluding that the French wording reinforced the interpretation that prohibited drip pricing involves charges added to an initial price representation.
Gascon rejected the argument that Parliament intended to require a single advertised total when it adopted the legislation.
“I do not dispute that having a requirement of all-inclusive pricing may perhaps be a preferable option for purchasers and consumers, but it is for Parliament to decide that,” the judge wrote.
The decision also distinguished Ticketmaster’s practices from those examined in a separate Canadian drip-pricing case involving Cineplex.
In that case, the Competition Tribunal found that Cineplex violated the law by advertising movie ticket prices without adequately disclosing a mandatory online booking fee. The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in January 2026.
Gascon explained that Cineplex’s additional fee was not visible within the initial screen presented to consumers, while Ticketmaster’s order processing fee appeared alongside the advertised ticket price.
The court emphasized that the design of a purchasing page and the visibility of pricing information can determine whether a representation violates the law.
Ticketmaster’s Earlier Canadian Drip-Pricing Settlements
The decision comes against a lengthy history of Canadian legal challenges to Ticketmaster’s pricing practices.
In 2019, Ticketmaster agreed to pay CA$4.5 million to resolve a Competition Bureau investigation into allegedly misleading ticket price advertising.
That agreement included a CA$4 million administrative penalty and CA$500,000 in investigation costs. The Competition Bureau had alleged that Ticketmaster advertised ticket prices that consumers could not actually obtain because mandatory fees were introduced at later stages of the purchasing process.
The settlement also required Ticketmaster to maintain a compliance program. The associated consent agreement remains binding for 10 years from its June 2019 registration.
More recently, TicketNews reported on the approval of a CA$6 million class-action settlement in January 2025 involving customers who purchased tickets for Canadian events during the first half of 2018.
That settlement provided eligible consumers with credits toward future ticket purchases. Ticketmaster denied wrongdoing, and the case was resolved without a trial.
The September 2026 decision concerns a different lawsuit and more recent purchasing practices. It does not overturn either of those earlier settlements.
Kuling had also alleged that Ticketmaster’s processing-fee disclosures violated the company’s 2019 consent agreement with the Competition Bureau. However, Gascon rejected that claim after determining that the challenged conduct did not violate the federal drip-pricing provisions on which the alleged consent-agreement breach depended.
Provincial All-In Pricing Requirements Remain
Although the federal court rejected the argument that Canada’s Competition Act requires all-inclusive pricing, the decision does not override provincial laws that impose stricter requirements.
Quebec’s Consumer Protection Act requires advertised prices to include mandatory charges, subject to exceptions for applicable taxes.
Ontario’s Ticket Sales Act similarly requires ticket offers to disclose the total price, together with an itemized breakdown of applicable fees, service charges and taxes.
Gascon specifically cited those provincial laws as evidence that lawmakers know how to impose an explicit all-inclusive pricing requirement when they intend to do so.
The federal Competition Act, the judge concluded, contains no equivalent obligation.
The distinction means that ticket sellers may comply with the federal drip-pricing provisions through clearly disclosed, simultaneous price components while still being subject to additional pricing requirements under applicable provincial legislation.
The court ultimately dismissed Kuling’s certification motion after finding that her proposed claims had no reasonable prospect of success.
Gascon also sharply criticized the plaintiff’s attorneys for abandoning most of their allegations immediately before the certification hearing, describing the last-minute change as improper and unjustified.
Ticketmaster sought CA$20,000 in legal costs, but the judge declined to award costs, citing the strong presumption against such awards in Canadian federal class proceedings and the absence of demonstrated prejudice to Ticketmaster from the late changes.
