US DOJ could seek break up of Live Nation, Bloomberg News reports

:The U.S. Division of Justice and a community of states will sue Dwell Nation Leisure, possibly wanting for a spoil up, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, outlining the following step in an antitrust marketing campaign against the Ticketmaster proprietor.

The Justice Division has been investigating Ticketmaster’s domination of concert designate gross sales, sources have previously told Reuters. Dwell performance followers and politicians for years have known as for a re-examination of the Dwell Nation-Ticketmaster merger in 2010, in particular after the botched sale of tickets to a Taylor Swift concert tour.

Bloomberg mentioned the lawsuit is expected to be filed in the Southern District of Unique York on Thursday.

The honest actual action underscores the aggressive strategy President Joe Biden’s antitrust enforcers have adopted as they stamp to form more competitors in a huge array of industries, from Large Tech to healthcare to groceries. It additionally displays the vitality and exasperate of concert-goers and Swifties, the nickname for Swift’s followers.

Dwell Nation came below fire in 2022 after Ticketmaster mishandled the sale of tickets to Swift’s 2023 tour. Ticketmaster used to be overwhelmed, canceling some plans for gross sales and sending would-be investors into on-line queues for as worthy as eight hours.

Some Swifties mentioned they had been consistently dropped by Ticketmaster as they waited to own. The service complained it used to be the target of bots and scalpers, but concert-goers additionally complained of excessive prices and depressed service.

U.S. senators in January 2023, in a hearing known as after the designate gross sales fiasco, slammed Dwell Nation’s lack of transparency and incapacity to dam bot purchases of tickets.

In the lawsuit to be filed on Thursday, the DOJ’s choices vary from requiring the firm to hand over unlawful behavior, a common search recordsdata from, to asking a court docket to spoil it up, which is rare.

The lawsuit comes after the Justice Division in 2010 accepted Ticketmaster’s controversial merger with Dwell Nation, with conditions intended to hand over the blended firm from harming competitors.

In 2020, a court docket extended most of its oversight of the merger to 2025 because, the department mentioned, Ticketmaster retaliated against stadiums and arenas that opted to make reveal of other ticketing firms.

Dwell Nation did now no longer immediately reply to a search recordsdata from for speak. It has mentioned in the past that it used to be assured its enterprise practices had been honest actual, and that the probe had been triggered by complaints from rivals, along side re-sellers.

Dwell Nation’s shares fell 7 per cent in after hours change.

The Division of Justice did now no longer immediately reply to Reuters’ search recordsdata from for speak.