Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, have become gatekeepers to live music, controlling major venues and driving up costs for artists and fans, the Consumers Council of Canada says.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
A Canadian consumer advocacy group is attempting to break up Live Nation Entertainment using a new provision in the Competition Act that allows private actors to challenge anti-competitive conduct.
The Consumers Council of Canada announced on Tuesday that it had applied to the Canadian Competition Tribunal for permission to sue Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation.
Citing a long history of alleged antitrust issues – dating back to Pearl Jam’s 1994 complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice against Ticketmaster – the consumer agency said the companies had become unavoidable gatekeepers to live music, controlling major venues and driving up costs for artists and fans.
“With that vertical integration that they possess, they can extract more than their fair share from artists,” Neil Hartung, a director on the council, said in an interview. “Ultimately, that’s all paid for by fans … that’s where the buck stops.”
This particular high-profile case may set an important precedent. In the past, only competitors directly harmed in their business could bring such claims to the tribunal, or the cases were initiated by the Commissioner of Competition, who heads the federal bureau.
Remedies were also limited to stopping conduct, rather than receiving compensation, said Adil Abdulla, an associate at Sotos LLP, the firm providing legal counsel to the council.
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That all changed this summer when new provisions to Canada’s Competition Act came into effect.
“The first big change is that consumers, and possibly workers or individuals, can bring” these cases to the Competition Tribunal themselves, Mr. Abdulla said.
The second big difference is compensation. “Before, the best case scenario was, if you won, you got an order stopping conduct,” Mr. Abdulla said. “Now, you get that compensation.”
The Competition Tribunal is an adjudicative body that operates independently of any government department. It’s a court, but one that has special appointees, many of whom are economists, council director Mr. Hartung said.
Such arguments brought before the tribunal are largely driven by economic evidence, he said.
Three other cases have been brought under the new provision so far, with one getting as far as the hearing stage before it was denied on Tuesday, according to Mr. Abdulla.
The case that was dismissed was among the first few brought under the new rules, and involved a Toronto-based video-game developer that took on Google, alleging that its parent company’s deal to make the tech giant the default search engine on iPhones, among other devices, was an abuse of dominance.
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The amendments to the Competition Act were part of a wider government push to increase competition and curb growing corporate concentration in Canada.
The tribunal has never ordered the breakup of a company in a contested case in its history, Mr. Abdulla said, even in cases brought forward by the Commissioner.
At the heart of the Consumers Council’s claim is that Live Nation uses its power to force artists and venues into anti-competitive terms and contracts, driving up prices for businesses and consumers. Similar actions have been launched in the U.S., where the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster in 2024.
The council’s claim singles out the potential for radius clauses, for example, which restrict where artists can perform geographically. Such a clause could state that if an artist goes to a Live Nation venue in Toronto, for instance, they might not be allowed to perform at other venues within 80 kilometres that are not associated with Live Nation, Mr. Abdulla said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Live Nation Entertainment said the filing in question “is based on misinformation” about how the live entertainment industry works.
“We will defend against these baseless allegations,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to work with the industry, our partners, and governments on solutions that give artists more control while enforcing existing anti‑bot and consumer protection laws.”
Although not formally a class action, the outcome of the council’s case could resemble that of a class-action suit, if successful, Mr. Abdulla said. If Live Nation’s conduct made the company $1-billion in profits, “the tribunal can order up to a billion dollars in compensation,” he said, though how the money would be distributed remains uncertain.
Procedurally, the first hurdle is getting permission, or leave, from the tribunal – with a key question being whether the issue qualifies as a legitimate public-interest claim. The tribunal will need to consider the potential economic impact both on consumers and the business community.
It’s going to be about “finding out where that line is in the provisions and what they mean,” Mr. Hartung said.