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Central District Of California Denies Motion To Dismiss Antitrust Claims In Ticketing Class Action
04/29/2025On April 11, 2025, Judge George H. Wu of the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a ruling on a motion to dismiss filed by Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. and Ticketmaster LLC (“Defendants”) in a class action antitrust lawsuit alleging violations of Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2. Heckman, et al. v. Live Nation Ent., Inc., et al., No. 2:22-cv-00047 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 11, 2025). The lawsuit was brought by individuals (“Plaintiffs”) who purchased primary and secondary tickets for major concert venues and paid fees at allegedly supracompetitive prices as a result of defendants’ alleged agreements and anticompetitive conduct. Judge Wu granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part.
Event venues commonly engage third-party ticketing service providers, such as Defendants, to manage the ticketing for popular events which often involve complicated processes. Defendants represent the largest live entertainment company in the world and the largest ticketing company in the United States.
In January 2022, Plaintiffs brought a class action lawsuit against Defendants, specifically alleging that Defendants pressured event venues to adopt its own ticketing service through coercive conduct. This conduct allegedly restricted competitive opportunities for other ticketing service providers and reduced choices available to vendors.
Plaintiffs’ Sherman Act Section 2 claims include allegations that Defendants engaged in predatory, exclusionary, and anticompetitive conduct, including tying arrangements, leveraging, conditional license and ticket transferability limits, and vertically-arranged boycotts in acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the markets for primary and secondary ticketing services for major concert venues. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss relying on four arguments in support of the motion.
First, Defendants challenged Plaintiffs’ antitrust standing, relying on recent Ninth Circuit precedent holding that antitrust injury must occur in the market where competition is restrained and where consumers have injury in the relevant market. The Court determined that the allegations in this case were “fundamentally different” from those in the Ninth Circuit precedent. Judge Wu noted that, unlike the plaintiffs in that case, Plaintiffs here were allegedly directly involved in the alleged markets as purchasers of primary and secondary ticketing services for major concert venues. Ultimately, Judge Wu concluded that Plaintiffs had antitrust standing, as their alleged injuries were direct and non-speculative.
Second, Defendants argued that the factual allegations supporting Plaintiffs’ Section 1 claim did not provide sufficient detail regarding the unlawful agreements between Defendants and venues, ticket brokers, artists, and others. The Court determined that Plaintiffs had sufficiently identified key aspects of unlawful agreements between Defendants and various venues and ticket brokers, including the “what, how, and why” of the agreements to satisfy Plaintiffs’ pleading requirements. However, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss with respect to the alleged unlawful agreements between Defendants and “artists or others,” as those assertions lacked the necessary detail.
Third, Defendants alleged Plaintiffs’ claims relating to secondary ticketing did not establish a plausible market. Plaintiffs contend that Defendants monopolized, or attempted to monopolize, the secondary ticketing services market for major concert venues. Although Judge Wu questioned Plaintiffs’ distinct submarket as defined, it found the alleged market was sufficiently plausible for the pleadings stage. Moreover, the Court considered Defendants’ share of over 60% of the U.S. secondary ticketing services for major concert venues and allegations that Defendant, Ticketmaster, has grown, despite higher fees, as sufficient to allege market power.
Fourth, Defendants argued that Plaintiffs’ conduct theories failed as a matter of law. The Court considered the “overall combined effect” of Defendants’ conduct. To survive the motion to dismiss stage, plaintiffs must allege facts in support of a theory that is not facially implausible. As such, the Court found that Plaintiffs’ allegations regarding tying arrangements, leveraging, conditional license and ticket transferability limits, and vertically-arranged boycotts were all plausible and should not be dismissed at this stage.
The majority of Plaintiffs’ claims were allowed to proceed, reemphasizing a focus on Defendants, as they are simultaneously litigating other antitrust claims brought by the DOJ and 30 state and district attorneys general. The Court’s decision underscores that consumers directly affected by alleged monopolistic practices can pursue their claims, even when the alleged harm is tied to complex business arrangements and narrow markets.
