Almost exactly one month after senators held a hearing on issues in the ticketing industry, they are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to continue examining what they call the “anticompetitive conduct” of Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation.
The ticketing giant came under renewed scrutiny after the Taylor Swift presale debacle in November, which prompted widespread accusations of monopolistic behavior (as well as several state consumer protection investigations and a fan-led antitrust lawsuit).
The Justice Department had reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into the company even before that ill-fated sale. NPR has reached out to Live Nation and the Justice Department for comment.
Live Nation has acknowledged areas of improvement, especially when it comes to bots and scalpers, but — both in a written statement and congressional testimony — denied engaging in behavior that would justify antitrust litigation or changing its business practices.
But that’s evidently done little to assuage the concerns of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have demanded answers and now say they aren’t satisfied with what they’ve gotten so far.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Mike Lee, R-Utah — who lead the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights — sent a letter on Wednesday to the Justice Department presenting evidence from the January hearing and urging it to follow up on unanswered questions.
Writing to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, the senators stressed that all of the witnesses except for Live Nation’s president had…
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