In what could prove to be a landmark case in the sports ticket marketplace, Live Nation's Ticketmaster is being sued by eBay-owned StubHub over its official alliance with the Golden State Warriors basketball team. Ticketmaster is the primary ticket seller for the Warriors, and also operates the official season ticket resale platform, where tickets can be officially resold. The basketball team threatens to cancel any tickets it sees being touted on other secondary sites, like StubHub: reselling a ticket is usually a breach of the terms and conditions of the original purchase. The threat has apparently worked. StubHub claims that listings for Warriors tickets, which is currently the hottest ticket in the NBA, are down 80 percent in the past year.
But StubHub has alledged that this amounts to anti-competitive behaviour on Ticketmaster's part. The eBay firm says in its complaint: "If you are a Warriors fan and you want season tickets, you have one choice: buy them through Ticketmaster". The company's General Counsel Michelle Fang then told Bloomberg that her client was suing in the interest of Warriors' fans, adding of Ticketmaster's motives: "Given that they haven't been able to win when we've competed on a level playing field, they're trying to compete unfairly".Ticketmaster responded to the litigation, saying: "We are disappointed that StubHub has filed a baseless lawsuit that asks the courts to help prop up its business against true fan-friendly competition. NBA teams like the Golden State Warriors have implemented ticket exchanges powered by Ticketmaster because they want ticket resale to be a secure experience, not an opportunity for scalping and fraud".
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12584885/stubhub-sues-golden-state-warriors-alleging-monopoly
Germany's competition regulator is invetsigating CTS Eventim's dominant position in the market. Eventim has received a request for information from Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) following the announcement of its recent joint venture with Netherlands-based Stage Entertainment. Eventim is also planning to acquire Arena Management, manager of the 19500 capacity Lanxess Arena in Cologne. CTS Eventim turnover was E711 in last financial year and it own See Tickets, TicketsOne (Italy) and Ticketcomer (CH) as well as part owning FKP Scorpio which itself promotes numerous European festivals incuding Hurricane, Southside, Deichbrand, Highfield-Festival, Chiemsee Summer und M’era Luna Festival, Elbjazz, A Summer's Tale, die beiden Indoor Festivals, Metal Hammer Paradise und Rolling Stone Weekender in Germany: NorthSide (Dänemark), Tinderbox (Dänemark), Getaway Rock Festival (Schweden), Bråvalla Festival (Schweden), Where's The Music? (Schweden), Provinssirock (Finl;and), Indian Summer Festival (Niederlande), Best Kept Secret (Niederlande) Greenfield Festival (CH).
In the USA, accusations that Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) violated federal and state anti-trust laws, interfered with contracts and used unfair competition tactics has been thrown out by a federal court in Maryland. The court dismissed all claims in a lawsuit filed in 2009 by promoter Seth Hurwitz’s companies It's My Party (IMP) and It's My Amphitheatre (IMA).
