Pedro Aihara, federal deputy from Minas Gerais | Photo: Zeca Ribeiro / Chamber of Deputies
The Chamber of Deputies approved, on Wednesday night (24), a bill that creates new penalties for scalpers. The practice consists of purchasing and negotiating tickets for resale at prices higher than those at the official box office. The approved text covers currency exchange at sporting events, concerts and other spectacles.
If the change becomes law, tickets issued for events must indicate the date of purchase and their final value, including any fees applied. The project, presented last year by deputy Pedro Aihara (PRD-MG), now goes for analysis in the Senate. In the Chamber, the rapporteur was deputy Luiz Gastão (PSD-CE).
The text includes three new types of crimes in the law on crimes against the popular economy. One of them is the falsification of tickets for sporting competitions, musical shows, theatrical performances, Carnival events or any other cultural, leisure or business events. The penalty will be imprisonment for one to two years and a fine equal to one hundred times the value of the ticket. Currently, currency exchange is already typified in the Sports Law, but only for sporting events.
When the scalper sells tickets outside authorized locations for a price higher than the price set, the expectation is imprisonment of 1 to two years, in addition to a fine equivalent to 50 times the value of the tickets. Anyone who provides, diverts or facilitates the distribution of tickets for sale in the practice of scalping may face a prison sentence of one to three years and a fine of one hundred times the value of the tickets.
The penalty will be increased by a third to half if the crime is committed by a public servant, director, administrator, manager or employee of the company that promotes the event, of a company contracted for the process of issuing, distributing and selling tickets and if they use this condition for the practice of foreign exchange. There will be an exception to the punishment when, in these last two crimes, the agent acts in an unusual way.
The project also determines that the person legally responsible for selling tickets in the virtual environment provides “queue management” for the purchase. The website must also have adequate and clear information about the event, the price of tickets and the method and deadline for returning and refunding purchased tickets.
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