Live Nation has reached a deal with the US Department Of Justice to settle the big antitrust lawsuit that finally got to trial in New York last week. According to Politico, the live giant will agree to new restrictions within its Ticketmaster business and hand over up to $280 million in damages in order to bring the two year legal battle to a close.
The out of court settlement will save Live Nation from the embarrassment of having senior execs pulled into the witness stand and the public spotlight being put onto aspects of its business that may be lawful but could still be considered controversial by artists and ticket-buyers.
However, the settlement has annoyed the judge overseeing the case who said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the settlement was actually agreed and signed on Thursday, but not disclosed to the court in proceedings on Friday. This, said Judge Arun Suramanian “shows absolute disrespect for the court, the jury, and this entire process”.
The new Ticketmaster restrictions will “revolutionise the ticketing marketplace”, according to one of Politico’s sources. Among other things, Live Nation will allow rival ticketing companies to list tickets through Ticketmaster’s platform. The ticketing division’s exclusivity deals with venues will also be limited to four year terms and will still allow venues to allocate some tickets for shows to other ticket sellers.
Live Nation will also reportedly commit to sell off around ten of the amphitheater venues that it currently operates in the US, and will cap Ticketmaster fees on shows at the amphitheaters it still runs at 15%. The cash damages will be paid to the 40 US states that are also involved in the lawsuit.
DoJ lawyer David Dahlquist last week told a jury that “the concert industry itself is broken” because the US live entertainment sector is “controlled by a monopolist”, in the shape of Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, which together are dominant players in concerts, venues and ticketing within the US.
The live giant routinely ties together its deals around concert promotion, venue management and ticket sales in an anticompetitive way, the government claimed, meaning Ticketmaster can totally dominate the ticketing business despite the fact “its technology is held together by duct tape”. The losers of this monopoly, they claimed, are Live Nation’s competitors, as well as artists and ticket buyers.
But even as the big antitrust trial got underway last week - and Live Nation’s lawyers got busy trying to pull apart the DoJ’s legal case - it seemed likely that the company’s lobbyists might still secure an out-of-court settlement with the DoJ’s antitrust team and at least some of the state-level attorneys general.
In the weeks before the trial, there were reports of Live Nation hiring some leading MAGA names close to President Donald Trump in order to put pressure on DoJ chief Pam Bondi to settle the case. It’s widely assumed that pressure contributed to the departure of Gail Slater, who headed up the DoJ antitrust team.
The remedies accepted by Live Nation to settle the case are quite significant. Especially given the company’s bluster throughout that the DoJ’s claims of anticompetitive conduct were basically bullshit, based on misunderstandings of how the live music industry works, anecdotal griping from competitors, and an artificial segmentation of the live sector by DoJ officials, to make it look like Live Nation and Ticketmaster are much more dominant than they really are.
But the ultimate sanction initially sought by the DoJ was a reversal of the 2010 merger that brought Live Nation and Ticketmaster together, and that is now seemingly well and truly off the table. And when it comes to offering competitors access to aspects of Ticketmaster’s platform and technology, quite how revolutionary that will turn out to be will very much depend on the specifics of what is planned.
Avoiding any potentially controversial or embarrassing revelations during court proceedings will also have made the settlement attractive to Live Nation bosses, despite the costly remedies.
That said, not all the 40 states that are involved in the legal battle have as yet signed up to the settlement - earlier today the Wall Street Journal reported ten are currently on board. Some of the states - especially those with Democrat Attorneys General - have previously indicated they would proceed with the litigation if they felt settlement terms secured by DoJ officials were not good enough.
And New York Attorney General Letitia James has already said those terms are not, in fact, good enough. She told reporters, “For years, Live Nation has made enormous profits by exploiting its illegal monopoly and raising costs for shows. The settlement recently announced with the US Department Of Justice fails to address the monopoly at the centre of this case, and would benefit Live Nation at the expense of consumers”.
However, even if state-level claims continue to go through the motions in court, the trial will probably get less media attention now the DoJ’s claims under federal law have been settled.