DOJ Sets Sights On Trust Busting Ticketmaster
The concertgoers and musicians could be the ultimate winners here.
Potential good news for Swifties! Happy to support the artist but feel like ticket prices are a little inflated? You’ll be happy to know that the DOJ is targeting LiveNation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster, alleging anti-competitive pricing. Bloomberg Law has coverage:
Top antitrust litigators from Latham & Watkins and Cravath, Swaine & Moore will lead Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s defense against a new Justice Department suit to break up the massive company.
Live Nation has tapped lawyers at the firms to fight the suit by DOJ and a group of states, according to two sources familiar with the situation. The suit, filed Thursday in a Manhattan federal court, challenges Ticketmaster’s control of concert ticket sales.
“I think this complaint represents an important step toward injecting long needed competition into the live entertainment industry,” said Kathleen Bradish, vice president and director of legal advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute.
If injecting long-needed competition results in lower cost to consumers, a resounding “hell yeah” is in order. Merrick Garland shares that sentiment in his own special way:
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No more being overcharged for Lauryn Hill tickets! The ticket being overpriced because she didn’t bother to show up on time isn’t an antitrust issue as much as a personal quirk, but maybe people wouldn’t be as angry if the cost of entry wasn’t as high!
The outcome of this case is likely to set the tone for any of the C-Suite folks in ticket sales — the DOJ is aiming for complete divestiture of Ticketmaster. Let’s hope this doesn’t become another Standard with all the resulting subsidiaries just making Live Nation more cash.
Live Nation Turns to Latham, Cravath Litigators to Fight DOJ (2) [Bloomberg Law]
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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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