Update February 2010: The UK enforcement authorities have withdraw their prior approval and are reconsidering the merger.
The Department of Justice agreed not to challenge the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger upon the condition that Ticketmaster would license ticketing software to AEG, enabling that company to offer a competitive ticketing alternative and provides the incentive for it to compete in promotion and venue management. The merged entity is also required to divest the ticketing business Paciolan, Inc. to Comcast-Spectacor (or another company). The agreement also prohibits the merged entity from retaliating against any venue that uses another company’s ticketing or promotion services, and it requires them to permit any customer that takes its ticketing business to a competitor to access its own ticketing data. The merged entity must also set up a firewall, preventing it from using any information garnered in the ticketing business for its promotion business. Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Christine Varney commented that Ticketmaster is required to divest more ticketing than it gained through he merger.