{"id":358544,"date":"2025-12-19T18:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T18:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358544\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T18:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T18:51:07","slug":"breaking-news-congressman-calls-for-federal-trade-commission-to-investigate-beckett-sale-to-psa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358544\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING NEWS: Congressman calls for Federal Trade Commission to investigate Beckett sale to PSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Congressman Pat Ryan<\/a> has demanded that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) open an investigation into possible anti-trust violations by Collectors, which owns multiple hobby companies, including three of the industry\u2019s top four grading companies. Ryan\u2019s letter was addressed to FTC Chair Andrew N. Ferguson.<\/p>\n

US Representative Pat Ryan, Democrat from New York, speaks on the fourth and last day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 22, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept the party’s nomination for president today at the DNC which ran from August 19-22 in Chicago. (Photo by Mandel NGAN \/ AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN\/AFP via Getty Images) <\/p>\n

Ryan\u2019s letter, which was released to SCD on Friday, states that through acquisitions of card-grading companies PSA (2021), SGC (February 2024)<\/a> and Beckett (announced December 2025), Collectors has \u201cconsolidated over 80% of grading volume, leaving only one independent competitor. Collectors\u2019 dominance is compounded by vertical integration; it controls grading capacity, pricing analytics through CardLadder, and participates in buying and selling graded cards\u2014creating severe conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven my 4- and 6-year-old boys, who just started their collections, know this behavior is wrong,\u201d Ryan stated in a press release. \u201cAttempts to corner the trading card market are not only deeply unpopular, they are unethical. Kids, collectors and local card stores shouldn\u2019t have to worry that the system is stacked against them, and the FTC needs to step in before this hobby is controlled by one powerful company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan said the FTC should investigate whether Collectors now has an illegal monopoly and whether it acquired SGC and Beckett \u201cspecifically to eliminate competition, and whether internal documents reveal a deliberate strategy of monopolization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Owens<\/p>\n

\u201cThe antitrust law is not there to knock out all monopolies whatsoever. It\u2019s to knock out monopolies that interfere with competition or hurt consumers,\u201d said hobby lawyer Paul Lekso. \u201cSo, would I say that they\u2019re just a monopoly, period? With that market share, yes, I would definitely say that they\u2019re a monopoly. Now are they to the grounds of illegal monopoly where antitrust should step in? They\u2019re really close.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a plaintiffs\u2019 attorney, I\u2019m looking at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Collectors nor Beckett have commented publicly since the initial announcement of the sale. Neither company has responded to requests for comment from SCD. <\/p>\n

Other questions that should be investigated, Ryan stated, include:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Serial Acquisition Pattern:\u00a0\u201cWhether Collectors\u2019 systematic roll-up strategy violates Section 5 of the FTC Act as conduct that inherently produces the cumulative harms the antitrust laws were designed to prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Regulatory Evasion:\u00a0\u201cWhether [previous Beckett owner] Coll\u0113ct\u012bvus Holdings functioned as a pass-through entity to evade merger scrutiny, and the extent of Collectors\u2019 involvement in the 2024 acquisition of Beckett.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Good-Faith Representations:\u00a0\u201cWhether the post-acquisition marginalization of SGC was contrary to representations made at the time of the merger, and if those actions warrant a court-ordered divestiture or unwinding of the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Erosion of Competition:\u00a0\u201cHow the elimination of independent rivals has directly impacted consumer pricing, service quality, and turnaround times across the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Price and Policy Coordination:\u00a0\u201cWhat safeguards, if any, prevent Collectors from coordinating pricing, grading standards, and competitive behavior across its three nominally \u2018independent\u2019 brands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Barriers to Entry:\u00a0\u201cWhat structural barriers now prevent new competitors from entering the market, specifically regarding the control of the limited labor pool of professional graders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Market Manipulation:\u00a0\u201cHow vertical integration\u2014controlling the grading process, the pricing data through CardLadder, and the marketplace itself\u2014creates unique opportunities for market manipulation and unfair self-dealing.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read Congressman Ryan\u2019s full letter\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Congressman Pat Ryan has demanded that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) open an investigation into possible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[177441,174764,174765,4,450,19871,177442,451,3,2076,177443,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-358544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-anti-trust-violations","9":"tag-beckett","10":"tag-beckett-grading-service","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breakingnews","13":"tag-federal-trade-commission","14":"tag-grading-cards","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-psa","18":"tag-sports-cards","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}