The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

Ticketmaster pays $10 million criminal fine for invading rival’s computers.  Ticketmaster LLC will pay a $10 million criminal fine to avoid prosecution on U.S. charges it repeatedly accessed the computer systems of a rival whose assets its parent Live Nation Entertainment Inc later purchased. The fine is part of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement between Ticketmaster and the U.S. Department of Justice, which was disclosed at a Wednesday hearing before U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie in Brooklyn federal court. Ticketmaster’s agreement resolves five criminal counts including wire fraud, conspiracy and computer intrusion. It also requires the Beverly Hills, California-based company to maintain compliance and ethics procedures designed to detect and prevent computer-related theft.

Alibaba’s $10 billion buyback plan fails to halt stock slide as regulatory concerns mount.  Alibaba shares slumped 9% to their lowest since June, as the firm’s upsized $10 billion buyback program failed to ease concerns about a regulatory crackdown on co-founder Jack Ma’s e-commerce and financial empire. A sharp sell-off over two sessions has knocked almost $116 billion off the tech giant’s Hong Kong-listed shares. The downward spiral intensified when Chinese regulators announced on Thursday the launch of an antitrust investigation into Alibaba and said they would summon its Ant Group affiliate to meet. Alibaba’s U.S. shares sank more than 15% during the day.

Edited by Gary J. Malone

Tagged in: Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust Litigation, International Competition Issues,