Elliot Lawry

the tickets were going to bots and that the service fees were so high because Live Nation and Ticketmaster had said it that way, that actually triggered a government response.

So the first thing they did was a Senate inquiry in the US into that particular incident with Taylor Swift.

And that Senate inquiry then later down the line inspired this case, which was then brought.

Yeah, so it did take some time.

The case was lodged in 2024, but it only went to trial in March of this year.

When it kicked off, it was only about a week in when the DOJ came out and settled with Live Nation Entertainment.

They basically agreed that they would cap their fees.

They'd pay a fine of around 280 million US dollars.

And crucially, the settlement said that they would not have to break up with Ticketmaster.

So I think they were very happy to sign on to that.

Yes, but the states did not and they continued on with the trial.

Yeah, exactly.

I think the easy way to think about it is that they're kind of two different groups.

So the DOJ is representing the federal government and they're there to kind of make sure that those antitrust laws are implemented and held to, whereas the attorneys generals are more acting on behalf of the residents of their states.

So they're more looking out for the people on the ground and they were saying that that settlement didn't protect the people that they were representing.

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The verdict was that the jury found that Ticketmaster and Live Nation were in fact running an illegal monopoly.

Specifically, they found that Ticketmaster was dominating the ticketing market, Live Nation monopolising the sort of venue market.