USA v. Live Nation-Ticketmaster: all the news on the lawsuit that could take down a giant

The Live Nation-Ticketmaster trial is back on. Dozens of states are expected to move forward with their claims against the company’s alleged concert industry monopoly beginning on Monday, following a brief hearing on Friday.

The Justice Department and a handful of states have accepted settlements with the company, but the majority of the 40 state and district attorney general plaintiffs — as of now — are continuing their fight in court. The states that are pressing forward withdrew their motion for a mistrial, filed after the DOJ announced its settlement in court Monday, and showed up with new outside counsel to lead their trial team in the absence of the federal litigators. The judge also said that jurors will be allowed to see internal chats between Live Nation employees who bragged about how they “gouge” fans, overruling opposition from the company.

Instead of moving forward with a jury trial against Live Nation-Ticketmaster as expected, the Justice Department announced a settlement Monday that omitted what used to be on the top of its wish list: a breakup.

What the DOJ did get was a series of concessions that some industry stakeholders found unsatisfying and even baffling. There are a few bright spots, those who spoke to The Verge said: a 15 percent cap on Ticketmaster service fees at Live Nation-owned or operated amphitheaters, for instance, and a pledge to give artists more transparency on their own ticket sales. But they remained unconvinced the deal would usher in the large-scale change proponents of the lawsuit wanted. Many are hoping state attorneys general continue their case in pursuit of broader remedies, even if there’s no guarantee a jury will find in their favor or that Judge Arun Subramanian will grant more dramatic requests.

Was it a threat or a reality check? That’s a key question in the government’s anti-monopoly case against Live Nation, which is currently in limbo after the Justice Department reached a settlement with the company and as dozens of states push ahead.

The Verge obtained the audio of a 2021 call at the center of the case. The recording, a public exhibit that was played for jurors in the first week of trial, features then-CEO of Barclays Center John Abbamondi and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino arguing over a ticketing deal for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena. A transcript of the call was previously posted to the docket, but the audio gives a better sense of how tense it really was.

The Live Nation trial is not over yet. Several states look to be headed to trial on their own as soon as Monday unless they hash out a settlement in the next few days.

On Tuesday, a day after the Justice Department revealed in court it had reached a settlement with Live Nation that a handful of states had agreed to, Judge Arun Subramanian held a hearing on the future of the case. He ordered Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, DOJ Antitrust Division acting chief Omeed Assefi, and representatives of states that hadn’t settled to stay at the Manhattan courthouse and attempt to reach a broader deal. Subramanian has not yet ruled on a mistrial motion that dozens of state plaintiffs filed yesterday, but he seemed inclined to move forward with trial next week should they remain without a settlement by then. As of Monday, 27 states and DC were part of the group of proceeding plaintiffs, out of the 40 total attorneys general.

On Monday, Live Nation-Ticketmaster agreed to settle a federal antitrust lawsuit with the Department of Justice. Eight states so far have indicated they plan to join the settlement, a district attorney said in court, and four others remain unclear on their status. The case alleged that it illegally monopolized parts of the live events industry, leading to higher ticket prices for consumers and locking venues into exclusive deals. Under the terms of the settlement shared by Live Nation, the deal won’t force it to split off from Ticketmaster.

27 states and DC will continue pushing their case, and have already filed for a mistrial.

SeatGeek was close to a deal that would bring its ticketing business to the next level. The company was in negotiations with the Dallas Cowboys, aiming to take over first-party sales at its stadium. But there was one sticking point: “the concert issue.” The team feared that if it dropped SeatGeek’s rival Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation could pull concerts from the team’s stadium, damaging an important revenue stream.

That’s how SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger remembers things. The deal was ultimately successful, resulting in a primary ticketing partnership that was announced in 2018. But for a while, Groetzinger recalled on the stand in front of a Manhattan jury Friday, “the concert issue was the one thing we just couldn’t get over, and seemed like it might tank the whole process.”

John Abbamondi had orders to let the CEO of Ticketmaster down easy.

In April 2021, Abbamondi was the CEO of BSE Global, the company that ran Brooklyn arena the Barclays Center. BSE Global’s existing Ticketmaster contract would expire at the end of September, and Abbamondi and his team had evaluated proposals from SeatGeek, AXS, and Ticketmaster. The economics of Ticketmaster offer, according to Abbamondi, “was nowhere near as good as the other two.” SeatGeek’s technology was “superior” to Ticketmaster’s on balance, on top of better financial terms including an equity stake in the company, the arena decided. It clinched their decision to go with a newer, smaller player in the field.

In mid-February, the Department of Justice lost its head antitrust enforcer — just weeks before it was scheduled to argue one of the year’s biggest anti-monopoly cases in court.

Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater announced her departure suddenly, via a post on her personal X account. But to those who follow the agency closely, it was far from surprising. For months, leaks about the division described tensions between Slater and her team with DOJ leadership, and President Donald Trump’s penchant for personal dealmaking raised questions about who would really call the antitrust shots.

Gail Slater, the top antitrust enforcer at the Justice Department, announced Thursday that she has left her post, just weeks before the agency’s next major tech monopoly trial against entertainment giant Live Nation is set to begin.

“It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today,” Slater posted from her personal X account. Slater thanked the staff of the Antitrust Division and called the role “the honor of a lifetime.” In a statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi thanked Slater for her service, but did not directly address questions about what precipitated her departure or who would take over as the acting leader of the Division.

The latest targets in the White House’s on-again-off-again antitrust war are Ticketmaster and Live Nation, two villains that everyone appears to agree on. The Federal Trade Commission is accusing Ticketmaster (which owns Live Nation) of allowing ticket brokers to illegally exceed limits on purchases and then profiting off the inflated resale value. Customers often pay significantly more than the face value because resellers have snatched up all the tickets. And when a ticket is resold through Ticketmaster’s site, it takes a cut, essentially profiting off the same ticket twice. The FTC even alleges that company leadership turns “a blind eye as a matter of policy” when dealing with brokers. The agency also says that Ticketmaster routinely uses deceptive practices when advertising prices, which are often much higher at checkout.

With Ticketmaster controlling roughly 80-percent of primary ticket sales in the US, fans and artists are often left with little recourse. Ticketmaster often blames the technological hurdles of trying to rein in scalpers, but the FTC doesn’t seem to be buying that excuse one bit. In the complaint it rebukes those claims saying:

The British government has pledged to investigate the use of dynamic pricing by ticketing websites after Oasis fans got priced out of the band’s surprise reunion tour. The UK’s advertising regulator told BBC News it had received 450 complaints regarding misleading ticket prices and availability, with many tickets more than doubling in price. Sales began on Saturday and sold out within hours after thousands of hopeful buyers spent the day in online queues.

On Ticketmaster, the cost of some tickets increased from £135 (about $177 USD) when sales began, to over £350 (about $460 USD). UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told ITV News that the government will “include issues around the transparency and use of dynamic pricing, including the technology around queuing systems which incentivize it,” in an upcoming consultation on consumer protections for ticket sales.

The real intent of Ticketmaster’s push for nontransferable tickets was to make it harder for fans to use rival platforms like StubHub and SeatGeek, the newly updated complaint in the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleges. The complaint, which was amended on Monday after 10 states joined the DOJ’s lawsuit, cites internal Ticketmaster documents obtained during the legal process.

In 2019, Ticketmaster rolled out SafeTix, which replaced static barcodes on electronic tickets with encrypted barcodes that refresh every 15 seconds. Ticketmaster marketed SafeTix as a way of reducing ticket fraud, but the complaint claims reducing competition was “a primary motivation” for the new ticketing system.

The US Justice Department and 30 state and district attorneys general have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, alleging that it has a monopoly in the live ticketing industry that enables it to illegally suppress competition.

“It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

The House passed the TICKET Act 388-24 on Wednesday, which would force ticket sellers to show consumers total prices (including fees) upfront and guarantee refunds when events are canceled or postponed.

The bill would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by the president to become law, but the overwhelming support in the House is a positive sign. The legislation comes after the Ticketmaster fiasco around Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets, where the ticket-selling platform canceled general sales after high demand it later partially blamed on bots. That prompted lawmakers to haul its top exec from its parent company, Live Nation, into a hearing. In the wake of the disaster, The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice was investigating Live Nation over whether it violated antitrust law by abusing its dominance in the live events industry.

The Department of Justice is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit could reportedly come as early as next month and will target the company’s alleged monopoly in the live ticketing industry.

Live Nation drew antitrust scrutiny when it merged with Ticketmaster in 2010. But those concerns boiled over in November 2022 when a Ticketmaster crash blocked thousands of Taylor Swift fans from purchasing tickets for the Eras Tour due to “unprecedented demand.” The DOJ opened an investigation into Live Nation shortly after, The New York Times reported.