{"id":9084,"date":"2025-12-17T14:13:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/doj-cites-reams-of-evidence\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:50:26","slug":"doj-cites-reams-of-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/doj-cites-reams-of-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Cites ‘Reams of Evidence’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tThe Department of Justice (DOJ) says in a new court filing that it has uncovered substantial evidence of Live Nation and Ticketmaster using \u201cinterlocking monopolies across the live entertainment industry\u201d to harm rival promoters and ticketers, as well as artists, venues and fans. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe DOJ, along with dozens of state attorneys general, is gearing up for a scheduled March trial in its blockbuster 2024 antitrust lawsuit that aims to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The feds allege that since acquiring Ticketmaster in 2010, Live Nation has used its simultaneous control of both ticketing and live event promotion to shut out competitors.<\/p>\n

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\n\tLive Nation filed a summary judgment motion last month, urging a New York federal judge to toss the case without a trial because there\u2019s \u201cbarely a molehill\u201d of evidence that it has done anything monopolistic. The DOJ\u2019s opposition brief, made public on Monday (Dec. 15), counters that this is simply not true.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefendants fall far short of their summary judgment burden because plaintiffs have developed reams of evidence that, viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, shows that defendants\u2019 anticompetitive conduct in all markets has harmed the competitive process,\u201d writes a team of lawyers from the DOJ Antitrust Division.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe government claims to have evidence of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster combination being wielded to corner 85% of the market share for primary ticketing. According to the DOJ, it can prove Live Nation regularly threatens venues with fewer shows if they don\u2019t use Ticketmaster and withholds its promoted acts from venues that use competitors like AXS or SeatGeek.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe brief says that on average, NBA and NHL arenas that switched away from Ticketmaster between 2017 and 2024 lost five more Live Nation shows per year than arenas that didn\u2019t switch. It also cites testimony from an unnamed former venue executive that there is \u201cwidespread fear in the industry\u201d of this sort of retaliation from Live Nation if a different ticketing service is used.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe DOJ says Live Nation has also used its power to eat up a 55% market share of the concert promotion business. The brief argues that Live Nation has shut out competition by buying up both rival promoters and scores of amphitheaters \u2014 and then forcing artists to use its promotion services in order to perform at those venues.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEverybody hurts \u2014 except Live Nation. Artists earn less because they cannot tour [amphitheaters] without Live Nation, and so they cannot benefit from competition between promoters,\u201d reads the brief. \u201cLive Nation\u2019s ancillary per fan arena fee \u2014 which venues pay to Live Nation, often via per ticket rebates \u2014 more than doubled from [2017 to 2024]. Live Nation hiked these fees because it could.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday (Dec. 16). The company has vehemently denied all the DOJ\u2019s claims, arguing in its summary judgment motion that the government is using a \u201cgerrymandered\u201d definition of the relevant market to fudge the numbers \u2014 and that competition in the live events space has actually increased since the Ticketmaster merger.<\/p>\n

\n\tLive Nation now has the chance to file a reply to the DOJ, after which U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian will make his decision on summary judgment. If the judge grants Live Nation\u2019s motion entirely, the case will be thrown out. If not, it will go to trial in the new year.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) says in a new court filing that it has uncovered substantial evidence of Live Nation and Ticketmaster using \u201cinterlocking monopolies across the live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3365,1343,983,7156],"class_list":["post-9084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-cites","tag-doj","tag-evidence","tag-reams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9417,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9084\/revisions\/9417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}