Leah 'AntiTrustButVerify' Nylen

@leahnylen.bsky.social

19517 Followers 914 Following

"There is no democracy without journalism." Covering antitrust, currently at Bloomberg News and “making people feel uncomfortable.” Former Politico, MLex, CQ. Email me at lnylen2 at bloomberg.net. On Signal: leahnylen.88. Opinions are my own (obvi).

Email from Live Nation executive to other at live nation on fees at Live Nation amphitheaters.
Chart listing fees for tickets sold to concerts at Live Nation amphitheaters.
Graph labelled "Annual revenue per category" that shows various revenue streams from 2017 through 2023. The sharpest increases are in Face Value (cost of a ticket) and Gross Transaction Volume (Face value + fees) from 2021 to 2023
Graph labelled Pricing Tool Use for North America Concerts. The graph shows Live Nation sold $2.8 million in concert tickets in 2019 using dynamic pricing tools versus $22.8 million in 2022 using the tools.
Assistant AG for Antitrust Gail Slater speaks from behind a podium
Screenshot of breaking news alert. Headline: Trump Says He Will Fire Fed's Cook If She Does Not Resign Text: President Trump says he'll fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook is she doesn't resign. Trump speaks to reporters in Washington.
Screencap of a paragraph from article: "For anyone else involved in tech M&A, such as investment bankers and deal lawyers, any limits on transactions mean fewer commissions and other fees. So, of course, they're inclined to criticize antitrust enforcement — whether deals are good for consumers and society or not."
Highlighted text from ruling: "We accept Trinko’s lesson that a single entity’s decision not to deal with competitors can be legal under the Sherman Act, but it is well established that antitrust remedies can and often must proscribe otherwise lawful conduct to unwind and further prevent violators’ anticompetitive activity.... These cases underscore that, after establishing liability, the district court had within its basket of remedial powers the authority to require Google to deal with parties harmed by its anticompetitive conduct, including its competitors"
Text message exchange between Hannah Smith and Marni Goldberg. Hannah: Leah broke through the media silence. LINK Marni: Shit
Passage from the article: "I get one kitchen manager on the phone, and he says this is “the stupidest fucking question” he’s ever been asked, and I’m like, Come on … really? This is Philadelphia, asshole, and if THIS is the stupidest question anyone has ever asked you, then you gotta get out more. I mean, two days ago, one of my neighbors asked me if I thought a cat could survive jumping out of the second-floor window of her townhouse and I said yeah, sure, cats are amazing, and then she said, “But what if it was carrying a whole chicken?,” and that wasn’t even the stupidest question I’d heard THAT DAY."
Table 2—Select Modified NPRM Proposals
Table 1—Rejected Proposals: Labor Market/Employee Information; Drafts of Transaction-Related Documents; Organizational Chart of Authors and Recipients; Other Types of Interest Holders that May Exert Influence; Expand Current 4(d)(iii) to Include Financial Projections to Synergies and Efficiencies; Deal Timeline; Provision of Geolocation Information; Identification of Messaging Systems; Litigation Hold Certification Language; Identification of F/K/A Names
It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster. The American people are ready for it.
Mullvad VPN ad: if your friend was a commercial search engine. Two men pictured. Guy 1: “What is this?! You’ve been taking notes on me for 20 years? And selling them” Guy 2, standing in front of reams of paper stacked under categories like “vacuum refund” “photos of dog”: “Um…it’s so I can be a better friend to you”
Provided further, that notwithstanding section 605 of the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State, the Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 1990 (15 USC 18a note), none of the funds credited to this account as offsetting collections during the current fiscal year shall become available for obligation in any fiscal year except as provided in the proceedings two provisos or as provided in a subsequent appropriations Act.
Provided, that fees in excess of $40 million in fiscal year 1990 shall be deposited to the credit of the Treasury of the United States: Provided further, that fees made available to the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division herein shall remain available until expended.
RemedyFest, Feb. 27 = Sen. Elizabeth Warren + Sen. JD Vance + FTC Chair Lina Khan + Bharat Ramamurti + Tim Wu +Soren Iverson
Hi Dan and Brent - I spoke with Todd to let him know about the commitment not to hire King Soopers workers during the strike and the commitment not to solicit patients to transfer their prescriptions. He understands and supports this.
"The need for openness in this case — arguably the most important antitrust trial in decades, with far-reaching consequences for the future of the tech industry — is both obvious and hard to overstate. Yet much of the testimony has taken place behind closed doors, and much other evidence remains out of public view"
Substantial evidence throughout the record demonstrates that programmatic is distinct from social and endemic channels and is viewed as such by industry participants. As a result, the Court does not find it plausible that, in the event the hypothetical monopolist increased DeepIntent’s prices, there would be so much substitution outside of the proposed market that the price increase would become unprofitable
Conversely, the Court does not find Dr. Israel’s conception of the market persuasive.
In other words, the existence of a larger market within which two products compete does not necessarily mean that they are reasonably interchangeable substitutes for one another. In this case, there is undeniably a broader market for digital healthcare advertising in which programmatic, social media, and endemic websites all participate. But “the viability of such additional markets does not render the one identified by the government unusable.”
At bottom, the Court may not simply rubber stamp the FTC’s request for an injunction upon the showing of a mere possibility that the antitrust laws will be violated. Instead, the Court must exercise its independent judgment to determine whether the FTC has raised serious questions about the antitrust merits that warrant thorough investigation in the first instance by the FTC. In doing so, however, the Court may not require the FTC to prove the merits of its case or to establish a violation of the Clayton Act. That inquiry is reserved for the administrative proceeding.
Statement on FTC challenge to proposed license agreement with Maze Therapeutics
Graph showing Google ad revenue and payments to be default search engine. Payments to be default have tripled between 2014 and 2021.
A Bloomberg reporter in the gallery unsuccessfully attempted to make herself heard during this discussion. See Sept. 19, 2023, PM Tr. at 1574:17-21.