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The
first consumer class action to piggyback on the government cases
was filed later on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, seeking
$5 billion in damages on behalf of potentially millions of
ticket purchasers.
The cases accuse Live Nation of exerting monopoly control over
the live events industry, threatening venues that work with
rivals and boxing out competitors.
Consumer cases related to U.S. or state attorneys general
lawsuits can pile up quickly and put added legal pressure on
companies.
Lawyers for the class action plaintiffs at Robbins Geller Rudman
& Dowd and Israel David did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Live Nation on Thursday called the government lawsuit “baseless”
and said there was "more competition than ever" in the live
events market.
The case was assigned on Friday to U.S. District Judge Arun
Subramanian, an appointee of Democratic U.S. President Joe
Bidenwho joined the court last year. Subramanian previously
represented some plaintiffs in antitrust lawsuits at law firm
Susman Godfrey, but the Live Nation case appears to be his first
antitrust matter as a judge.
Lawyers who reviewed the government complaint said Live Nation
could base its defense partly on the Justice Department's
decision to sign off on the company's acquisition of
Ticketmaster more than a decade ago.
Crowell & Moring’s Eric Enson, an antitrust lawyer who is not
involved in the lawsuit, said the government's case raised
thorny “legal and factual questions about whether a breakup is a
legally permissible remedy.”
The case might resonate with consumers who have long complained
about ticket prices, he said, "but proving antitrust cases to
juries can be difficult."
However, antitrust legal scholar Rebecca Allensworth of
Vanderbilt University said that while the public's opinion of
Live Nation is legally unimportant, "appearances matter in
cases, maybe especially when they are decided by juries."
The Justice Department said its prior case in 2010 addressing
Live Nation's merger with Ticketmaster involved a different
antitrust law and that Live Nation had since shown “more
expansive forms" of anticompetitive conduct.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella in WashingtonEditing by David Bario,
Nick Zieminski and Matthew Lewis)
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