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DOJ Drops the Ball on LiveNation/Ticketmaster Merger

January 29th, 2010 | 2 Comments | Posted in Companies

At first blush, it looked like a slam-dunk antitrust case for the government.

Ticketmaster, a company that came to dominate the live-music ticketing business by buying up seven of its rivals, was suddenly facing a challenge to its 83 percent market share. Its largest customer, Live Nation, a big venue manager and concert promoter, had decided to launch its own ticketing subsidiary and quickly grabbed 16 percent of the market. Ticketmaster responded in kind by purchasing Front Line Management, which manages tours for 200 of the country’s top music artists.

By early 2009, Ticketmaster vs. Live Nation was turning into one of those price-reducing, service-improving rivalries that benefit consumers much more than shareholders. So in February, the two companies called a truce and announced they were merging. The Obama administration, eager to demonstrate that the era of no-touch antitrust enforcement was at an end, put the deal on hold, launched a wide-ranging investigation and told company lawyers it was prepared to block the transaction.

Read the full article at Washington Post

Officials Knew of AIG Bonuses Months Before Firestorm

May 13th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Companies

As American International Group chief executive Edward M. Liddy returns to Washington to face Congress today, new details are emerging about how long federal officials were aware of the company’s recent bonus payments to its executives and of how inflammatory the payments could be.

Documents show that senior officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York received details about the bonuses more than five months before the firestorm erupted and were deeply engaged with AIG as well as outside lawyers, auditors and public relations firms about the potential controversy. But the New York Fed did not raise the alarm with the Obama administration until the end of February.

Timothy F. Geithner, who became Treasury secretary early this year, was the head of the New York Fed when it became aware of the bonus details. But his name is not among those of senior New York Fed officials mentioned in the summaries of phone calls, correspondence and other documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Read the Full Article at the Washington Post