Report: Feds To Seek Live Nation-Ticketmaster Break-Up

The federal government and a group of states will file an antitrust suit against Live Nation as soon as Thursday, Bloomberg News reports.

Citing people familiar with the case, Bloomberg says one of the remedies sought in the suit will be the break-up of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The companies merged in 2009 and entered into a consent decree with the federal government to allow the merger the next year. That consent decree was amended in early 2020 and is set to expire at the end of 2025.

The DOJ opened an antitrust investigation of Live Nation in November 2022 and the Wall Street Journal reported in April that a lawsuit was imminent.

Bloomberg says the suit is expected to be filed in the federal court of the Southern District of New York.

Justice Department officials declined to comment to Bloomberg. Live Nation did not immediately respond to Pollstar‘s request for comment.

Live Nation stock plummeted in after-hours trading once the Bloomberg story went live, trading as low as $91 after closing at $101.40.

The news comes on the heels of an appearance by Live Nation President and CFO Joe Berchtold at theJ.P Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications conference, where he said meetings between the company’s top executives and leading Justice Department officials were ongoing.

“We wouldn’t get to this point if they didn’t have concerns, but the good news is we’re still talking and they’ve said they have an open mind,” he said at the conference. “So without getting into the real details of the conversation, I think it’s fair to say I continue to believe that we fundamentally have business practices that are fully defensible. But we’re also open to figuring out common ground in order to get this settled and moved on. But we don’t know exactly what they want at this point still.”

Berchtold’s statement echoed what he told investors during the company’s quarterly earnings call May 2, when said discussions between senior officials at the company and DOJ indicated the feds were in the “final phase” of the investigation. On that call, Berchtold acknowledged “competitors and interest groups” were pushing the DOJ to break-up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, but that he didn’t believe that was a legally available remedy as the Justice Department “repeatedly stated in court filings that the merger and settlement were in the public interest.”

“The DOJ’s investigation appears to be focused on specific business practices, not the legality of Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger or our overall business structure. Very little of the conduct that DOJ has raised with us relates to the combination of ticketing and promotion resulting from the merger,” he said.

In January 2020, the Justice Department filed a memorandum stating that Live Nation was “retaliating against concert venues for using another ticketing company, or conditioning or threatening to condition Live Nation’s provision of concerts and other live events on a venue’s purchase of Ticketmaster’s ticketing service … Specifically, Defendants have repeatedly conditioned and threatened to condition Live Nation’s provision of live concerts on a venue’s purchase of Ticketmaster ticketing services, and they have retaliated against venues that opted to use competing ticketing services – all in violation of the plain language of the decree. Indeed, Defendants’ well-earned reputation for threatening behavior and retaliation in violation of the Final Judgment has so permeated the industry that venues are afraid to leave Ticketmaster lest they risk losing Live Nation concerts, hindering effective competition for primary ticketing services.”

Despite the strong words, citing findings dating back to the early days of the consent decree, no antitrust actions were filed at that time.