The New York legislature has responded with an anti-scalping law to protect against the resale by unscrupulous promoters and others of tickets at exorbitant prices. In particular, the law makes it illegal both to resell tickets without a license, and to resell tickets at more than the face value plus either five dollars or ten percent of the face value, whichever is greater.
Most people know ticket scalping when they see it.
Recently, though, a New York appellate court was asked to determine if a formal contractual arrangement involving the sale of certain tickets constituted ticket scalping and therefore violated the law. The court ruled that it did. Before Haber could obtain or use the tickets, however, the Garden canceled the Coleman subscriptions and refunded the price of the tickets to Coleman. Haber ultimately was repaid for the face value of the tickets he had contracted to purchase. The court disagreed with Sahn.