[WASHINGTON, DC] - Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), delivered an opening statement at a bicameral public forum examining the Live Nation - Ticketmaster monopoly and a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) sweetheart deal that undermines antitrust enforcement. Blumenthal hosted the forum alongside U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary.

The forum, titled, "Corruption Takes Center Stage: How the Live Nation - Ticketmaster Settlement Threatens Antitrust Enforcement," featured testimony from a recording artist, a legal expert, a concert promoter, a music venue owner, and a state official who continued pursuing accountability after rejecting the DOJ's proposed settlement.

"We are here today at the beginning of the concert season. A lot of people are looking forward to going to see their favorite artists and bringing their family. And having affordable access and it will be denied to them because of Ticketmaster - Live Nation, and tactics that it has repeated over the years again and again and again," Blumenthal said at the forum.

Blumenthal continued, "I met this morning with a venue owner, the Webster Theater in Hartford, and he described to me some of the bullying, heavy-handed tactics that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have used to pressure artists to leave his venue and go to others owned by Live Nation in Connecticut. Where Live Nation doesn't own the venues, it often controls them through long-term contracts, and it pressures the artists to go with them, saying they won't be able to appear, their tickets will not be sold. This kind of bullying use of market dominance is classic violation of antitrust laws. And Ticketmaster - Live Nation has been able to get away with it because of lack of enforcement against them."

Blumenthal slammed the DOJ's proposed settlement, raising concerns about potential corruption, "They entered a sweetheart deal with Ticketmaster Live Nation, a meager, trivial amount of money to be paid as Congressman Raskin said, and a few minor conditions including the divestment of some of their control over venues. Nada. Nothing really effective to help consumers. Why? The why is the corruption question. They did it because of fixers and lobbyists who actually had worked in the Administration and were able to bring influence to bear on the Department of Justice to skew law enforcement in a corruption scheme that undermines the very credibility of that great institution that many of us who work there have revered, the Department of Justice."

As Ranking Member of PSI, Blumenthal led a years-long investigation into Ticketmaster's control of the ticketing market. As part of that investigation, Blumenthal released a Minority staff report earlier this year detailing how Ticketmaster uses its enormous market power to influence venues and artists and supercharge prices for fans. The full text of Blumenthal's report is available here.

Video of Blumenthal's opening statement is available here and the full transcript is copied below.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): Thanks for that very powerful statement, thanks for your partnering on this effort and thanks to all of our witnesses. I'll just kind of put an exclamation mark on one point that Congressman Raskin made, which is that we are depending on our state Attorneys General, again, a phenomenon not unknown to America, as I can attest from having served as the attorney general of the state of Connecticut for 20 years in exactly these kinds of multistate actions where states had to pursue justice even after the federal government abandoned the fight.

We are here today at the beginning of the concert season. A lot of people are looking forward to going to see their favorite artists and bringing their family. And having affordable access and it will be denied to them because of Ticketmaster Live Nation, and tactics that it has repeated over the years again and again and again.

I met this morning with a venue owner, the Webster Theater in Hartford, and he described to me some of the bullying, heavy-handed tactics that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have used to pressure artists to leave his venue and go to others owned by Live Nation in Connecticut. Where Live Nation doesn't own the venues, it often controls them through long-term contracts, and it pressures the artists to go with them, saying they won't be able to appear, their tickets will not be sold. This kind of bullying use of market dominance is classic violation of antitrust laws. And Ticketmaster-Live Nation has been able to get away with it because of lack of enforcement against them.

We have urged, many of us in the Congress, that there be action by the Department of Justice, Senator Klobuchar has been a leader, others in the House as well, urging that there be more effective law enforcement. The law is dead letter if it's not enforced, and just last March, I produced a report after a number of years, that showed the tactics at work. How Live Nation pressured artists to put their tickets on sale in the secondary market for resale before they were offered to the public, causing skyrocketing prices for those tickets. How they pressured artists and venues to do dynamic pricing.

A lot of Americans have no idea what dynamic pricing is, but it is essentially raising prices in response to increasing demand, and as you can see from this poster, the use of dynamic pricing increased 700 percent in just three years from 2019 to 2022. That is monopolistic manipulation at work. These tactics include a lot of variations on the theme, but the bottom line here is twofold. Number one, corporate greed and concentration. They do it because they can. And they can because they control 80 percent-that's another number I would like you to remember-80 percent of all the ticket sales in the country. Very few industries have that kind of concentration.

But it's also about corruption. The Department of Justice won this case. A jury said, in effect to Ticketmaster-Live Nation, you are guilty. Not criminally but in effect, you did it. You're liable. You're responsible. And then the Department of Justice threw in the towel. They entered a sweetheart deal with Ticketmaster Live Nation, a meager, trivial amount of money to be paid as Congressman Raskin said, and a few minor conditions including the divestment of some of their control over venues. Nada. Nothing really effective to help consumers. Why? The why question is the corruption question. They did it because of fixers and lobbyists who actually had worked in the Administration and were able to bring influence to bear on the Department of Justice to skew law enforcement in a corruption scheme that undermines the very credibility of that great institution that many of us who work there have revered, the Department of Justice.

So, where we are right now is a clear path. Number one, break up the company. Not novel or original as a remedy, been done before. There may be no instance of monopolistic wrongful use of power than this one that merits the breakup of this company. After all, it was the result of a merger from, not organic growth. They didn't get there by working hard and building from the ground up. They did a merger that many of us opposed, and we have urged for years that it be broken up. And then a price cap on secondary market prices.

There ought to be some fairness here. So that consumers are not, in effect, exploited by the scalpers and the secondary markets. And third, the Junk Fee Prevention Act, which I advocated, that basically says if you offer a price, that ought to be the price that consumers, fans, concertgoers have to pay, not a price that has all kinds of hidden fees and charges, that can increase them literally by 25 percent. I am not making that number up. That is what we found in our investigation.

So, I'm really looking forward to these witnesses who have so much knowledge, but I think ultimately, we are going to rely again on state enforcers, our state Attorneys General and ultimately, the power of the court to act in the public interest. That's the reason why we have an independent judiciary, that's the reason that the President's proposed slush fund for $1.8 billion bucks is a settlement of his lawsuit. Remember, it's his lawsuit against the government he controls and that settlement is again a perfect example of corruption. He likes to say he's made perfect statements. This kind of compromise of the public interest in the Live Nation-Ticketmaster case is also an example of corruption and the court can put a halt to it.

I hope it will and I'll turn it now back to Congressman Raskin.

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