U.S. Department Of Justice & 30 States Sue To Break Up Live Nation

The U.S. Justice Division, 30 states, and District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit to interrupt up Dwell Nation Leisure, Inc. The lawsuit comes after a number of years of inspecting Dwell Nation’s ticketing practices, which U.S. Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland had some fairly harsh phrases about.

“We allege that Dwell Nation depends on illegal, anticompetitive conduct to train its monopolistic management over the dwell occasions business in the USA at the price of followers, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” mentioned Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland in an announcement.

“The result’s that followers pay extra in charges, artists have fewer alternatives to play concert events, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer actual selections for ticketing providers. It’s time to break up Dwell Nation-Ticketmaster.”

In response to CNN, the lawsuit alleges that Dwell Nation sought to monopolize dwell music, successfully slicing out everybody however themselves and utilizing that place to cost no matter they need. Dwell Nation has not responded to the lawsuit.

For these unaware, Dwell Nation Leisure, Inc. was based in 2010 after Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster merged.

Dwell Nation and the federal authorities of the USA have not precisely had one of the best relationship over the previous few years. In 2023, the Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) issued a subpoena to Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster, demanding paperwork associated to ticket pricing, charges, and resale practices.

The PSI’s probe was initially launched in March following widespread criticism of Ticketmaster’s dealing with of ticket gross sales for concert events by Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. In each circumstances, followers had been met with exorbitant charges and technical glitches that made it almost inconceivable to buy tickets. These incidents, together with Ticketmaster’s dominant place within the dwell leisure market, have raised issues concerning the firm’s use of monopoly energy to gouge customers.

Dwell Nation Leisure was additionally sued in 2023 over antitrust legal guidelines by a bunch of customers, however won the lawsuit thanks to their their Terms And Conditions. The antitrust lawsuit was filed in Ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals and was dominated towards by a choose, who mentioned the lawsuit belongs in arbitration relatively than in courtroom.

In 2022, Congressman Invoice Pascrell, Democratic consultant for New Jersey’s 9^th congressional district, referred to as for Dwell Nation Leisure to be damaged up over security and monopolization issues. Pascrell initially wrote to the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) in March of that yr saying that mergers needs to be simpler to overturn, and that the 2010 merger between Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster was each dangerous for competitors and precipitated a lapse in security measurements at occasions.

“The union of Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster is a posterchild of consolidation gone dangerous,” mentioned Pascrell in his letter. “When Dwell Nation, the nation’s largest live performance promoter, and Ticketmaster, the biggest ticket supplier sought to mix, they assured regulators that their fusion would promote competitors within the dwell occasions market. A number of members of Congress, together with myself, vocally disagreed. We virtually begged President Obama‘s administration to cease the deal.”

Pascrell cited tragedies like Travis Scott‘s Astroworld Competition, the place 10 individuals died and a whole lot had been accidents as crowds received uncontrolled. Regardless of the incidents, Dwell Nation Leisure has solely continued to develop financially.

Mark Perry of American Enterprise Institute penned an analogous letter printed by The Hill, saying that Dwell Nation Leisure at the moment owns 70% market share of the live performance ticket market and 80% of ticket distribution for stadiums and arenas in the USA. Perry concluded his letter, saying “With dwell occasions again, Washington shouldn’t miss this chance to repair what’s damaged in dwell occasion ticketing.”