The Department of Justice wants to cut Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s set short. After months of anticipation, the DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against the companies, seeking for them to be broken up . “We allege that Live Nation has illegally monopolized markets across the concert industry in the United States for far too long,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference on May 23.
The lawsuit comes amid renewed attention on Live Nation and Ticketmaster after issues with ticket sales for artists including Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, and, most prominently, Taylor Swift . Congress has also turned a bipartisan eye toward Live Nation . Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia joined the federal government in the lawsuit, which makes a meticulous case that Live Nation and Ticketmaster hold monopoly power in multiple markets.
Live Nation, meanwhile, has responded by calling the claims “absurd” and “baseless.” Let’s make like antitrust lawyers and break things up down: Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010, a move that was also controversial at the time. Live Nation had become the second-largest ticketing platform behind Ticketmaster, and some lawyers and scholars cautioned that the deal could create a self-dealing monopoly.
The Obama administration aimed to solve that with a consent decree that set some boundaries for Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s conduct. That decree was set to run for ten years, but after Live Nation was f.
