The US Division of Justice has sued Ticketmaster and its father or mother firm, Reside Nation Leisure, for abusing their alleged monopoly within the ticketing market to trample opponents.
Filed on Thursday within the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit focuses on Ticketmaster’s long-term exclusivity contracts with lots of the largest music venues, making it the predominant ticketing service out there to concertgoers. The agency secures these offers partially by “threatening and retaliating in opposition to venues that work with rivals,” the DOJ alleges.
Within the grievance, the DOJ accuses Ticketmaster and Reside Nation, which acts as a promoter for tons of of high-profile artists, of exploiting their relationship to determine a “self-reinforcing flywheel” that blocks opponents from gaining a foothold. Reside Nation parlays its unique promotion offers into unique ticketing offers with venues, the DOJ claims, that are left with no sensible alternative however to go along with Ticketmaster, for concern of shedding entry to sought-after acts represented by its father or mother firm. The DOJ is searching for to interrupt up the joint group.
We allege that Reside Nation depends on illegal, anticompetitive conduct to train its monopolistic management over the dwell occasions trade in the USA at the price of followers, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” says lawyer basic 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 decisions for ticketing providers. It’s time to break up Reside Nation-Ticketmaster.”
Reside Nation declined to remark.
The fees introduced by the DOJ mirror allegations made beforehand in opposition to Ticketmaster in two ongoing personal lawsuits.
In December 2022, Ticketmaster was sued by tons of of Taylor Swift followers, who introduced a case in response to a high-profile ticketing debacle that reportedly left them queuing for hours to pay for tickets that they’d been assigned beneath an early entry program, with many in the end unable to assert their allocations. The incident led to a listening to by the Senate Judiciary Committee on consolidation within the ticketing trade and, reportedly, helped catalyze the investigation into Ticketmaster by the DOJ.
Of their lawsuit, the Swift followers accused Ticketmaster of abusing its dominant place to impose “larger costs within the presale, sale and resale marketplace for live performance tickets.” The corporate has “effectuated this anticompetitive scheme by forcing followers of musicians to make use of Ticketmaster completely to purchase live performance tickets,” the lawsuit alleged.
Within the second case, a category motion introduced in 2022 on behalf of Ticketmaster prospects within the US, Reside Nation and Ticketmaster are accused of abusing the complementary relationship between their providers to overcharge shoppers and maintain their monopoly. “Reside Nation controls the overwhelming majority of the massive nationwide touring acts and, both explicitly or implicitly, coerces live performance venues into choosing Ticketmaster as their ticketing service supplier on ache of shedding high-value acts,” claims Adam Wolfson, a associate at Quinn Emanuel, the legislation agency representing the plaintiffs.
