{"id":1573,"date":"2024-06-29T01:18:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-29T01:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/live-nation-antitrust-case-judge-indicates-possible-trial-start-date\/"},"modified":"2024-06-29T01:18:05","modified_gmt":"2024-06-29T01:18:05","slug":"live-nation-antitrust-case-judge-indicates-possible-trial-start-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/live-nation-antitrust-case-judge-indicates-possible-trial-start-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Nation Antitrust Case Judge Indicates Possible Trial Start Date"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tThe federal judge presiding over the Department of Justice\u2019s sweeping antitrust case against Live Nation thinks the trial can begin as early as March 2026, according to recent federal court filings.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Arun Subramanian<\/strong> explained Thursday (June 27) in the case\u2019s first pre-trial hearing that he hoped jury selection could begin that month, although he stopped short of setting a firm date.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the first items of business for Subramanian, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden<\/strong> in 2023, is to rule on a planned motion by Live Nation to move the case from the Southern District of New York to the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., where Live Nation\u2019s 2010 merger with Ticketmaster was first approved. Subramanian said he believed his court could properly preside over the case but that he would fully consider the advisement.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to being appointed to the federal bench, Subramanian was a partner at litigation firm Susman Godfrey LLP, which currently represents Live Nation in the 2021 Astroworld festival class action lawsuit. Subramanian did not work on that case.<\/p>\n

\n\tGovernment attorneys said in a Tuesday (July 25) filing that they plan to bring additional claims against Live Nation, noting the new claims could include information that attorneys from Live Nation have designated as highly confidential and might ask the courts to seal.<\/p>\n

\n\tAttorneys for the government \u201cdo not believe any of the information at issue merits sealing or overcomes the presumption of public access to judicial documents,\u201d the filings explain, noting that if Live Nation doesn\u2019t budge, the government will ask the judge to rule on the matter.<\/p>\n

\n\tDepartment of Justice (DOJ) lawyers also complained that Live Nation attorneys have delayed discovery requests and failed to \u201cfully comply with any of the United States\u2019s three pre-complaint civil investigative demands\u201d dating back to October 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt took Defendants nearly a year to start producing custodial documents,\u201d the filing reads, noting that \u201ctheir responses to many specifications remain incomplete today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLawyers for Live Nation called the government\u2019s discovery allegation false, noting that \u201csince October 2022, Defendants have spent over 200,000 attorney hours reviewing documents, produced over 600,000 documents from nearly 70 custodians, produced over 33 million observations of data, submitted dozens of written responses, and provided investigative deposition testimony from three high-level executives in response to Plaintiffs\u2019 investigations. In addition, DOJ has access to nearly two million documents that Defendants produced during prior investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAttorneys for Live Nation added that they want \u201cany documents, data or testimony Plaintiffs received from third parties during their investigation\u201d no later than July 22, 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tLive Nation is also challenging the government\u2019s unusual request for a jury trial instead of having the verdict determined by a judge. \u201cIf it occurred, it would be the first jury trial ever in a government-brought monopolization case,\u201d the company\u2019s attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tOutside of Live Nation, the government also says it plans to issue more than 100 third-party subpoenas to \u201cticketers, promoters, ticket brokers, venues, venue management companies, artists, and artists\u2019 agents and managers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLive Nation declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

\n\tLive Nation is being represented by longtime attorney and litigator Timothy L. O\u2019Mara<\/strong> and Alfred C. Pfeiffer<\/strong>, both partners at Latham and Watkins. Pfeiffer is the former co-chair of the firm\u2019s Antitrust & Competition Practice. Ticketmaster is represented by David R. Marriott<\/strong> with Cravath, who successfully represented Illumina against the Federal Trade Commission and secured a 2022 victory for the Louis Dreyfus Company against DOJ efforts to block the sale of Imperial Sugar to U.S. Sugar.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe government is represented by Bonny Sweeney<\/strong>, who joined the DOJ in 2022. Sweeney formerly served as a partner at San Francisco firm Hausfeld where she was co-chair of its U.S. antitrust practice group. In 2023, she was named antitrust lawyer of the year by the California Lawyers Association.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The federal judge presiding over the Department of Justice\u2019s sweeping antitrust case against Live Nation thinks the trial can begin as early as March 2026, according to recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[358,294,639,423,344,1206,2240,342],"class_list":["post-1573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-antitrust","tag-case","tag-date","tag-judge","tag-live","tag-nation","tag-start","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}