Live Nation's top two in-house lawyers will not have access to “highly confidential” documents produced by competitors such as AEG Presents and SeatGeek in the antitrust lawsuit filed against the giant by the Justice Department, although they will be granted access to fewer sensitive “confidential” documents under strict terms that limit how the information is used and shared, according to a protective court order signed Monday (July 29) in the Southern District of New York.
A federal judge overseeing the case agreed to establish the two-tier system for handling nonpublic documents the DOJ subpoenaed from Live Nation competitors as part of its ongoing investigation. For the past six weeks, the Justice Department's antitrust counsel Bonnie Sweeney is in talks with Live Nation, which is accused of operating its ticketing and concert promotion businesses as a monopoly, about limiting access to the company's in-house lawyers — executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs Dan Wall and senior litigator Kimberly Tobias — to confidential information delivered by competitors. Live Nation's lawyers have argued that giving Wall and Tobias access to confidential information is crucial to helping the company prepare its defense.
“Mr. Wall and Ms. Tobias are litigators in good standing and officers of the court,” Live Nation's outside counsel said Alfred C. Pfeiffer he wrote in a letter to a New York federal judge Arun Subramanian. “Both have been bound by multiple protective orders and have never been charged with violating those orders. Their access to confidential information in no way compromises that information.”
Government lawyers counter that even if Wall and Tobias “undertake not to use any information they receive outside of this case, they cannot see what they saw,” Subramanian wrote in a July 23 court order that tries to resolve the confidentiality access issue. . Two days later, lawyers for SeatGeek, AEG and ASM Global filed letters asking Subramanian to block Wall and Tobias from seeing any sensitive documents the companies produced.
The records produced by SeatGeek for the government “include documents that a company would never want to fall into the hands of any competitor,” SeatGeek's lawyer said William Kalema he wrote to the court.
“SeatGeek hears at least weekly from venues that are reluctant to even meet with SeatGeek for fear of retaliation from the defendants,” the letter continued. “If the market learned that venue contracts and other communications with Ticketmaster's competitors were available to the defendants' senior management, SeatGeek's ability to market its product would be further hampered.”
AEG's lawyers said they had produced “hundreds of thousands of documents” for the DOJ, including the company's “most sensitive and competitively important materials.” Attorney for AEG Justin Bernick took particular issue with Wall regarding previous statements Wall made to the media and on Live Nation's blog, arguing that Wall often acted as a spokesperson for the company rather than its attorney.
After a brief hearing, Subramanian ruled that Wall and Tobias would not be able to see documents marked as highly confidential — meaning those dealing with trade secrets, customer lists, current or future financial and strategic information, terms of private contracts, personnel records, planning documents and anything deemed sensitive by the courts — and that those documents can only be viewed by Live Nation's outside lawyers. However, Wall and Tobias can see confidential information — defined as previously non-public financial information, material related to the ownership of non-public companies, business plans and marketing campaign documents related to product development.
In order to view confidential court records, Wall and Tobias must agree not to participate in or advise Live Nation on “competitive decision-making” or lawsuits against AEG or SeatGeek — except for disputes connected to its lawsuit DOJ — for two years after the final confidential documents are reviewed.
The designations of “top secret” and “confidential” will be determined by those who produce the documents, Subramanian wrote in the earlier July 23 opinion, noting that “if it turns out that vast portions of the record are improperly classified as top secret, the Court will step in.” and require “page-by-page review of the documents by the producing party on a tight schedule or appropriate modifications to the protective order.”
Advertising sign Live Nation has been contacted for comment on this story. The trial of USA v. Live Nation Entertainment is scheduled to launch on March 2, 2026.
