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- Live Nation and Ticketmaster in merger, but antitrust nightmare ….
Live Nation and Ticketmaster in merger, but antitrust nightmare ….
… which could be good for contracts attorneys if it ever gets to a review.
Regulatory experts and antitrust attorneys reviewing the merger say it could be delayed by an antitrust review because of the companies’ dominant role in the entertainment business and the anticipated response by the
Obama administration. But we don’t know how many “meet and confer” have taken place with the DOJ.
Wachtel Lipton is antitrust counsel to Ticketmaster, and Latham Watkins will counsel Live Nation.
Among the points made by industry experts/antitrust attorneys (composite of articles and interviews):
– Ticketmaster has a long history of entanglement with regulators and plaintiffs over questions of anti-competitive practices.
– The class action suit launched against Ticketmaster yesterday in Canada alleging, among other things, “scalping” of tickets by Ticketmaster.
– The multidistrict litigation titled In re Live Concert Antitrust Litigation alleging antitrust violations in the concert promotion and concert ticket market.
– Agents will file protests given their relevance with artists could be diminished when the keys to the vault are held by one powerful entity. With live music already the most reliable income stream for most artists, labels would have even less influence.
– Venues will protest because they will lose any leverage they might have gained when the landscape held two giants competing for their business. According to Pollstar, Ticketmaster has sold tickets for more than 80% of large arenas and stadiums in the US.
– Live Nation has a five year deal in place to sell tickets for SMG managed venues. SMG was Ticketmaster’s second biggest partner behind Live Nation itself.
– Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with the NBA, NFL and NHL. Live Nation has a multi-year sponsorship deal with CBS Radio.
– Both companies own large direct-to-fan service groups: Ticketmaster via the acquisition of Echomusic, Live Nation following the purchase of MusicToday in 2006.