Live Nation Executives and Board Members Charged with Antitrust Activities

Live Nation Entertainment is facing a new shareholder lawsuit accusing management and board members of condoning anti-competitive practices that exposed the company to financial losses.

This action alleges collusion between CEO Michael Rapino and CFO Joe Berchtold, as well as Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke. The derivatives lawsuit comes after the U.S. Department of Justice accused Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster of anti-competitive practices. The Justice Department is seeking to force Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster after failing to comply with a 2010 merger agreement.

A new shareholder lawsuit filed by John Williams alleges that the government’s legal action against Live Nation will “seriously harm and prejudice” Live Nation and its shareholders. Williams blames board members for the current legal action, which “Live Nation has spent and will continue to spend significant sums of money” to defend itself against.

Williams claims that Live Nation’s executives and board members “continued to encourage Live Nation to engage in anti-competitive conduct in violation of the consent decree.” It maintains this constitutes a breach of fiduciary duty on their behalf, making it more difficult to scrutinize the Justice Department for its anti-competitive practices.

Williams also claims that Live Nation’s management “misled the company’s shareholders and investors” by claiming it was cooperating with investigators. “The truth was the opposite — Live Nation actively sought to thwart federal investigations and did not cooperate with them.”

The investigation brought by the Department of Justice “details numerous internal emails and correspondence between Live Nation and other entities revealing egregious violations of antitrust law.” These violations include collusion between Live Nation and Oak View, the venue operator co-founded in 2015 by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff.

“Live Nation initially viewed Oak View Group as one of its greatest competitive threats,” Williams claims in his lawsuit. “But instead of competing, the companies colluded with each other to avoid competition” and agreed to a “mutually beneficial scheme” to violate competition law and “increase profits at the expense of consumers.”

The lawsuit alleged that Oak View Group and Leiweke specifically “aided and abetted” Live Nation board members. It highlights that Leiweke called Oak View a “pimp” for Live Nation, “at times delivering threats on Live Nation’s behalf to venues that were considering ditching Ticketmaster in favor of another ticket provider.”