Dozens of states moved forward Monday with an antitrust trial against Live Nation, breaking with the Trump Justice Department’s decision to reach a rather favorable settlement with the live events company.
The trial’s beginning marked a notable act of bipartisan defiance of the Trump administration’s notable deference to corporate interests, particularly tech companies. In last week’s Tuesday Tech Drop, I mentioned that several states had opted not to sign onto the Trump administration’s settlement with Live Nation, which ended the federal government’s involvement in a lawsuit against it and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, on allegations of operating an illegal monopoly.
Numerous musicians, including Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, have denounced Live Nation’s ticket pricing. Critics of the deal have said it will do little to curb Live Nation’s market power.
After the settlement was announced, internal Slack messages revealed in unsealed court filings showed Live Nation employees mocking customers over the company’s ability to set prices for non-ticket upgrades and add-ons, with one employee calling customers “stupid” and bragging about “robbing them blind.” (In a related court filing, Live Nation said the comments “reflect off-the-cuff banter, not policy, decision-making, or facts of consequence to Plaintiffs’ antitrust claims.”) This kind of public revelation arguably gave states even more incentive to proceed to trial.
As Bloomberg noted on Friday, all of the states that signed onto the settlement are controlled by Republicans: Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota. That said, the remaining list of more than 30 attorneys general proceeding with the trial includes people as ideologically diverse as New York Attorney General Letitia James and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — both of whom appear unwilling to accept the Trump administration’s capitulation to yet another corporate giant.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
