{"id":7020,"date":"2025-07-22T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ovgs-tim-leiweke-surrenders-in-bid-rigging-case-pleads-not-guilty\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T19:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T19:48:09","slug":"ovgs-tim-leiweke-surrenders-in-bid-rigging-case-pleads-not-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ovgs-tim-leiweke-surrenders-in-bid-rigging-case-pleads-not-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"OVG’s Tim Leiweke Surrenders in Bid-Rigging Case, Pleads Not Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tTim Leiweke<\/strong>, the live entertainment mogul and former CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), has pled not guilty to rigging bids for the construction of Austin\u2019s Moody Center Arena after self-surrendering in the criminal antitrust case.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors allowed Leiweke to turn himself in on Monday (July 21) rather than face arrest for this month\u2019s indictment, which accuses him of conspiring with the chief executive of Legends Hospitality to rig the bidding for OVG\u2019s construction and management of the $338 million, 19,000-seat Moody Center in 2017.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter surrendering, Leiweke appeared in federal court in Austin and pled not guilty to the single charge of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Judge Susan Hightower released Leiweke on a $1 million bond, with orders that he stay in the continental U.S. and hand over his passport.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeiweke was until recently the CEO of OVG, which he founded alongside legendary music manager Irving Azoff <\/strong>after leaving his former post as CEO of live music behemoth AEG in 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Department of Justice\u2019s Antitrust Division alleges in the case that Leiweke made an illegal anticompetitive deal with Legends Hospitality during the bidding for the Moody Center contract. Prosecutors say Leiweke promised to award building subcontracts to Legends if they withdrew plans to bid on the project.<\/p>\n

\n\tSources tell Billboard<\/em> that the DOJ discovered this alleged conspiracy while reviewing the emails of former Legends CEO Shervin Mirhashemi<\/strong> as part of its regulatory probe into the company\u2019s merger with ASM Global last year.<\/p>\n

\n\tOVG and Legends both admitted to bid-rigging as part of non-prosecution agreements in which they agreed to pay respective penalties of $15 million and $1.5 million. The two companies are now cooperating with prosecutors.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeiweke stepped down as CEO of OVG following the indictment, but he maintained his innocence in an internal staff email announcing the resignation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is not true, and I am confident that jurors in Austin will see this case for what it is \u2014 wrong on the facts and the law and a misguided attempt to criminalize the lawful, ethical and procompetitive efforts of complementary businesses joining forces to deliver a compelling proposal,\u201d Leiweke wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Gerger, <\/strong>Leiweke\u2019s lawyer, also denied any wrongdoing in a statement to Billboard <\/em>on Tuesday (July 22).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTim and his team built UT a great arena \u2013 and saved the university millions of dollars in the process,\u201d wrote Gerger. \u201cThey did that by competition, not crime, and Tim is innocent of these charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLeiweke remains a shareholder of OVG and vice-chair of the company\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Leiweke, the live entertainment mogul and former CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), has pled not guilty to rigging bids for the construction of Austin\u2019s Moody Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6503,294,2493,6501,6499,2492,6502,6500],"class_list":["post-7020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bidrigging","tag-case","tag-guilty","tag-leiweke","tag-ovgs","tag-pleads","tag-surrenders","tag-tim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7020","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=7020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}