Ticketmaster and Live Nation: A report on the completed merger between Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc and Live Nation, Inc [full report / appendices and glossary] – Competition Commission (2010)
Author: Competition Commission
Organisation/Affiliation/Publisher: Competition Commission
Date: 2010
“On 10 June 2009, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) referred the anticipated merger of Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc (Ticketmaster) and Live Nation, Inc (Live Nation) to the Competition Commission (CC) for investigation and report. We published our final report on 22 December 2009. However, on 19 January 2010, CTS Eventim AG (Eventim) lodged a Notice of Application with the Competition Appeal Tribunal (the Tribunal), challenging the decision in our final report to clear the merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation. On 11 February 2010, the Tribunal ordered that our decision be quashed and the merger be referred back to us for reconsideration, with a deadline of 11 May 2010. Further to the Tribunal’s decision, on 12 February 2010, we republished the report which we had previously published on 22 December 2009 as our further provisional findings, and we invited all interested parties to provide us with their comments on this document. On 25 January 2010, following approval (subject to conditions) from the Department of Justice in the USA, Ticketmaster and Live Nation completed their merger. Therefore, pursuant to section 37(2) of the Act, we considered the merger during the remittal period as completed rather than as anticipated, and we treated the reference as if it had been made under section 22 of the Act.”