Justice Department: Last News

concert ticket prices and hurt artists.“It is time to break up Live Nation,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland.Concert fans and politicians for years have been calling for a re-examination of Live Nation’s purchase of Ticketmaster in 2010, especially after the ticket seller in 2022 botched sales to Taylor Swift’s first concert tour in years, sending fans into hours-long online queues, charging prices that customers said were too high and drawing charges of poor service.Thursday’s legal action underscores the aggressive approach President Biden’s antitrust enforcers have adopted as they seek to create more competition in a wide range of industries, from Big Tech to healthcare to groceries.“Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” Garland said, adding that as a result fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to perform and smaller promoters get squeezed out.Shares of Live Nation were trading down 5%.Live Nation called the suit a possible “PR win for the DOJ in the short term,” but said the entertainment company would prevail in court. The lawsuit “won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows.”“There is more competition than ever in the live events market,” it added.The suit says Live Nation directly manages more than 400 musical artists and controls around 60% of concert promotions at major venues.

antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation as soon as next month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.Live Nation’s subsidiary Ticketmaster, which for decades has been condemned for hardball tactics and high prices, was also widely criticized in 2022 after botched ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, feeding demands that the two companies be investigated for harming consumers.The lawsuit would allege that Live Nation had leveraged its dominance in a way that undermined competition for ticketing live events, the WSJ report said.The DOJ and Live Nation did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.Shares of the Ticketmaster-parent dropped about 6% in extended trading.Last year, Live Nation was issued a subpoena by a US Senate panel for documents pertaining to ticket pricing, fees and secondary sales.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Steven Miron and Steven Newhouse resigned from the Warner Bros. Discovery board after the Justice Department informed them it was investigating “whether their service on the Board of Directors violated Section 8 of the Clayton Antitrust Act,” the company announced Monday. Miron, CEO of media company Advance/Newhouse Partnership and a senior executive officer at the Newhouse family’s investment business Advance, and Newhouse, co-president of Advance, were both independent directors of Warner Bros.

Donald Trump‘s first criminal trial is now scheduled to start on April 15.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the company has established a monopoly with the iPhone that has harmed consumers, developers and competitors. “Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly,” the government said in the lawsuit filed Thursday.

A judge delayed Donald Trump‘s New York criminal trial, in which he faces charges related to hush money payments paid to Stormy Daniels, by at least 30 days.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Binance Holdings, operator of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges that it violated the Bank Secrecy Act and other laws and will pay $4.3 billion to resolve the investigation, the Justice Department said Tuesday. In addition, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao entered a guilty plea of failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program in violation of the BSA, according to the DOJ.

Killers of the Flower Moon,” by David Grann, which details how the Osage fell victim to a string of murders.One was killed with poisoned whiskey (there may have been more), others got shot and Bill and Rita Smith, a white man married to an Osage woman had their home blown up. The pure greed of it all was made evident when William King Hale (often referred to, simply, as King), a wealthy rancher who held considerable sway over Native Americans and whites alike, took out a $25,000 life insurance policy on an Osage man named Henry Roan. A doctor who examined Roan for the policy asked Hale if he planned on killing Roan.

Adam Aron, the CEO of AMC Theatres, revealed that he had been the victim of an “elaborate criminal extortion.” The chief of the world’s largest cinema chain didn’t reveal details about what he described as a “blackmail attempt” other than to claim they were “related to false allegations about my personal life.” Aron says there has been a “vigorous” criminal investigation taken by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and he had reported the situation to the FBI and Justice Department.

A former contractor for the Internal Revenue Service has been charged with leaking tax information to news outlets about thousands of the country’s wealthiest people.

Google’s lopsided command of the search market was put on trial on Tuesday, as federal and state attorneys argued that the tech giant unfairly abused its dominance at the expense of rivals and start ups.

Bill Maher did not hold back about his thoughts on a Trump vs. Biden matchup for 2024 on Joe Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience over the weekend.

It was not until the Republican presidential debate entered its second hour that Fox News anchor Bret Baier addressed “the elephant not in this room” — the indictments of no-show Donald Trump.

U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who has been overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden, has been appointed to the post of special counsel, a move intended to give him a new level of independence from the Justice Department.

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote for Thursday on whether to cite Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg with contempt of Congress. claiming that he has failed to comply with a subpoena.

UPDATE, 1:41 PM: Former ABC News producer James Gordon Meek today pleaded guilty to “transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material,” according to the Department of Justice.

There’s no place like prison?

George Santos is seemingly in deep water.

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right group Proud Boys, was convicted along with three other members of the organization for their roles in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

saw witnesses like Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions take the stand and testify under oath. Prosecutors alleged at trial that the Fugees founder immersed himself in American politics at the behest of Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, who paid him millions to help launder money Low had allegedly embezzled from a state-owned investment fund in his home country. The alleged scheme involved payments to Barack Obama's 2012 presidential reelection campaign and efforts to convince the Trump administration to extradite a Chinese national. Low remains at large, but was charged as a codefendant in Michel's case and played a major role in witness testimony and evidence presented to the jury.

, has been sentenced to life in federal prison following his conviction for arranging the 2016 murder of his nephew.Norman learned his fate on Thursday morning in St. Louis federal court following the week-long trial back in September.