A trio of prominent antitrust economists has entered the Department of Justice’s landmark monopolization case against Live Nation Entertainment, filing an amicus brief Thursday that sharply rebuts one of the company’s central post-trial arguments on damages.
The brief—submitted by Yale economist Steven Berry, MIT economist Nancy Rose, and Yale School of Management professor Fiona Scott Morton—supports the government’s damages model and argues that Live Nation’s challenge rests on a basic misunderstanding of economic theory.
At issue is Live Nation’s Rule 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law on damages, filed after trial. The company is seeking to invalidate the government’s damages calculations, specifically attacking the methodology used by the DOJ’s economic expert, Dr. Rosa Abrantes-Metz.
The economists’ message to Judge Arun Subramanian is straightforward: Live Nation is conflating two fundamentally different economic concepts—fixed payments between firms and per-unit pricing charged to consumers.
That distinction sits at the heart of the government’s damages theory.
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