The New Year kicked off with news of mergers, acquisitions and regulatory headwinds as vaccination roll-outs accelerated in key markets…
Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG), which owns MyTicket, revealed in January that it planned to delist from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange after securing support of the entertainment firm’s largest single shareholder.
Formula 1 owner Liberty Media, which also owns around one-third of Live Nation, also revealed plans in January surrounding a $500m Initial Public Offering (IPO) for its newly formed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Liberty Media Acquisition Corporation (LMAC).
Elsewhere, Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court handed Viagogo a win after dismissing a lawsuit against the secondary ticketing firm, for alleged unfair competition. The lawsuit had been in motion since autumn 2017, where the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) had sued the Geneva-based company for reportedly selling invalid tickets to customers.
Ticketmaster was made to pay out $10m to avoid prosecution on US-based charges that its employees repeatedly accessed the computer systems of rival company CrowdSource, which was later acquired by Songkick. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that the deferred prosecution agreement would resolve a case comprising five counts of computer intrusion and fraud offences.