Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) for 15 years the leading critic in Congress against Ticketmaster, today hailed and celebrated the announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that it will finally seek the dissolution of the abusive Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly through a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York.

“This news is a victory for the millions of American fans who have been taken advantage of, screwed, ripped off, and outright robbed by this corrupt and greedy entity,” said Congressman Pascrell. “Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kantor and his antitrust team at the Justice Department have today commenced one of the most fan-friendly moves by our federal government in many years. It is a new day for consumers in America. Live Nation and Ticketmaster should never have been allowed to merge. I beseeched the Obama administration to block it and have spent the last 15 years trying to right that wrong. If ever a company has been a corporate embodiment of Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort coming together it is Live Nation-Ticketmaster. Whether you are a sports fan or a music fan, a Swiftie or a Springsteen nut, a Deadhead or a member of the BTS Army, this news should make you rejoice because it can improve your quality of life and save you money.”

The Justice Department is joined by 30 other states in their antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster. They allege the companies use their massive power to crush competition, take unfair advantage of fans, use threats and intimidation to manipulate venues and performers, retaliate against rivals, and other systemic outrageous behavior.

Pascrell has been the leader in Congress calling for regulation of the opaque live events ticket market. Pascrell was an early critic of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, and repeatedly urged the Obama administration to reject it, warning that the union would crush competition and harm consumers. Even after the merger was approved, he did not give up his goal to separate these companies. In 2018, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed authored by Pascrell advocating for a breakup, and later that year Pascrell asked the Justice Department to investigate Ticketmaster corruption. 

On March 22, 2022, Pascrell wrote to the heads of the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department Antitrust Division urging them to overhaul federal guidelines to make it easier to overturn bad mergers. As part of the agencies’ joint inquiry into modernizing merger regulations, Pascrell flagged the Live Nation-Ticketmaster as a “posterchild of consolidation gone bad” and urged its dissolution.

On November 18, 2022, Pascrell led 31 House colleagues on a letter to the Department of Justice calling on the agency to open a formal investigation of Ticketmaster. 

On March 28 of this year, Pascrell released a previously secret report detailing rampant corruption and abuse by the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly and forwarded the findings to the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Justice Department.

For years, Pascrell has been the principal sponsor of the Boss and Swift Act, legislation endorsed by consumer groups that would impose a basic level of transparency upon the ticket industry so fans have a fair chance to purchase tickets on the primary market and also seeks to protect consumers who choose to use the secondary market to purchase tickets. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce held a hearing on the bill last year. A full section-by-section breakdown of the Boss and Swift Act is available here. Senator Blumenthal is the primary sponsor of the Senate version of the Boss and Swift Act.