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Could UK Class Actions Put a Stop to Ticketmaster’s Price-Gouging?

April 18, 2023

Could UK Class Actions Put a Stop to Ticketmaster’s Price-Gouging?

The following piece was contributed by Tom Davey, Co-Founder and Director at Factor Risk Management. News of another class-action lawsuit against Ticketmaster comes as little surprise, given the company’s long history of legal disputes both in the UK and North America. Described by US senator Richard Blumenthal as a “monopolistic mess”, the company has been beset with criticism and legal action ever since merging with events promoter and venue operator Live Nation in 2010. The combined entity controls around 70% of the live venue and ticketing marketplace, a situation which many believe it exploits at the expense of its customers. The latest class-action suit, filed by a Canadian law firm, centres on the alleged price-gouging of ticket sales for an upcoming concert by rap superstar Drake. A Montreal man purchased two “Official Platinum” tickets for Drake’s show on 14th July, believing it was the only date he would be performing at the Bell Centre. Having paid $789.54 for each ticket, he then discovered the next day that a second show had been added, with the same tickets each costing $350 less than what he had paid. The suit claims that Ticketmaster had been deceptive in not announcing both dates at the same time and had intentionally withheld the information about a second show to manipulate fans into overpaying. Further, the suit alleges that the tickets sold as “Official Platinum” were simply ordinary tickets relabelled as premium in bad faith. As such, compensation of the difference between the prices paid and the cheaper-priced identical tickets is being sought, as well as punitive damages of $300 for each affected customer. While collective actions are not easy to mount in North America, plaintiffs are bolstered by the fact that juries there tend to be more claimant-friendly than in other jurisdictions, including by awarding significant damages when finding in their favour. Beneficial costs rules also make such legal actions easier to bring, making the conditions sufficiently clement for group claims to proceed to trial. By contrast, the system in the UK remains more austere, operating under an unclear, unpredictable and complex regime, whether in the High Court or in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). However, there is an increasing trend of lawyers at North American firms with a UK presence, or vice versa, noticing the direction of travel set by their colleagues in the US and exploring similar actions, subject to the limitations of their respective jurisdiction. As such, Ticketmaster’s various legal issues in North America may well prove a precursor for similar UK-based claims. The current class-action facing Ticketmaster is just the latest in a series of lawsuits brought against the company for claims including price fixing and anti-competitive behaviour. The company also faced severe criticism after introducing a “dynamic pricing” model in the UK last year. Already in use in its US sales operations, the system replaces fixed-price tickets with tickets that fluctuate in price based on demand, with critics seeing the model as yet another example of Ticketmaster abusing its dominance of the market to extract even more profit from a captive consumer base. The company’s legal woes are not limited to issues over the pricing of its tickets. Following a data breach affecting 1.5m UK customers in 2018, Ticketmaster settled out of court in relation to a 40,000-strong group claim. However, the £1.25m penalty notice issued by the ICO did not confer compensation to the affected individuals, nor was it binding by the court. In any event, given the seriousness of the breach, in which personal and banking information was stolen and misused, resulting in over 60,000 bank cards being fraudulently used, such a small fine would have had little effect as a deterrent. With global revenues of over $9 billion, it is evident that large companies like Ticketmaster are able to flout the rules with limited financial impact. With little meaningful regulatory or court enforcement against the firm, Ticketmaster continues to operate with impunity, safe in the knowledge that its ballooning profits will exceed any financial penalties imposed for any wrongdoing it carries out. There are clouds on the company’s horizon, however, with US Senators earlier this year calling on the Justice Department to investigate what they called “anticompetitive conduct” by Ticketmaster in relation to its sales. Their call to arms followed a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in February, which had convened to investigate the lack of competition in the ticketing industry and what they saw as the unfair dominance of Ticketmaster in the sector. The Senate inquiry had been prompted in part by the well-publicized fiasco surrounding ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s upcoming five-month tour. Ticketmaster’s website crashed during the sales process, stranding customers in line for “presale” tickets for hours, and eventually leading to the cancellation of the public sale. Instead, the only tickets available for purchase were listed on resale sites at sky-high prices, despite Ticketmaster’s promises to weed out scalpers, bots and resale firms from its original sales process.  A class action lawsuit duly followed the debacle, as well as reports that the Justice Department had already opened an antitrust investigation into the firm. Politicians were quick to echo the concerns of affected customers, while Tennessee’s attorney general announced a consumer protection investigation into the company after being deluged with complaints from residents of the state. Should the claims of antitrust practices be confirmed by the Justice Department, there is a high likelihood that legal teams in the UK would then explore a potential claim against the company via the CAT. This would be a lengthy, expensive and high-risk process, with any cases brought via such route needing third-party funding in order to see their way to fruition. While group actions such as the Canadian lawsuit currently facing Ticketmaster can be complex processes to negotiate, court-awarded compensation is a far more effective tool in curbing corporate malpractice when compared with the modest fines which regulators can levy. If UK law firms are to follow the lead of their North American counterparts, Ticketmaster may finally pay the price for price-gouging.
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Pogust Goodhead Defeats BHP Bid To Block Deposition Of Former Renova Chief

The High Court has rejected mining giant BHP’s application for an anti-suit injunction (ASI) that sought to prevent Pogust Goodhead from pursuing lawful evidence-gathering measures in the United States against the former president of the Brazilian redress scheme foundation set up after the Mariana dam collapse.

The Court found no basis to characterise Pogust Goodhead’s use of Section 1782 to seek a deposition of Mr André de Freitas, former CEO of the Renova Foundation[i] as vexatious, oppressive, or unconscionable, as argued by BHP.

In November 2024, Pogust Goodhead filed the §1782 application in the District Court of Arkansas seeking limited testimony from Mr de Freitas in relation to Pogust Goodhead’s claim arguing that BHP unlawfully interfered with Pogust Goodhead’s retainer rights and the compensation due to its Brazilian clients.  The U.S. court granted the subpoenas in January 2025.

Since then, BHP has sought to block the deposition by filing motions to quash the subpoenas in April 2025 and seeking an ASI in the High Court. A ruling from the Arkansas court is pending.

In Wednesday’s judgment, Mr Justice Waksman rejected BHP’s request for an injunction that would have halted the U.S. evidence-gathering process, finding no basis to prevent Pogust Goodhead from continuing with its §1782 discovery efforts.

Justice Waksman wrote in his decision: “I agree with PG that the depositions serve a distinct and legitimate purpose, being to better understand Renova’s role in relation to the various settlements and their form.”

Alicia Alinia, CEO at Pogust Goodhead commented: “We welcome the Court’s clear judgment. BHP has repeatedly attempted to obstruct legitimate investigations into its conduct. Mr de Freitas’s testimony is central to understanding how our clients’ rights may have been undermined. It is essential that he gives evidence. Only by hearing directly from those involved can our clients’ rights be properly safeguarded and the full truth established.”

Key Findings

  • The court held that English courts do not control how parties lawfully obtain evidence abroad, and that the U.S. court is the appropriate authority to decide the scope and propriety of discovery sought under Section 1782.
  • The Court also highlighted BHP’s significant delay in bringing the ASI application — nearly four months after learning of the U.S. subpoenas — which weighed against granting any injunctive relief.
  • Any concerns about the scope of the subpoenas, alleged misstatements, or burden on the witness are squarely matters for the U.S. District Court, which has already engaged with the issues in detailed hearings.

As a result, BHP cannot use the English courts to derail the ongoing U.S. process. The parties now await the District Court of Arkansas’s decision on whether BHP’s motions to quash the subpoenas will succeed.

Commercial Special Features

Third Party Funding 3.0: Exploring Litigation Funding’s Correlation with the Broader Economy

By Gian Marco Solas |

The following article was contributed by Dr. Avv. Gian Marco Solas[1], founder of Sustainab-Law and author of Third Party Funding, New Technologies and the Interdisciplinary Methodology as Global Competition Litigation Driving Forces (Global Competition Litigation Review, 1/25).  Dr. Solas is also the author of Third Party Funding, Law Economics an Policy (Cambridge Press).

There is an inaccurate and counterproductive belief in the litigation funding market, that the asset class would be uncorrelated from the global economy. That was in fact due to a much bigger scientific legal problem, that the law itself was not considered as physical factor of correlation, as instrument to measure and determine cause and effects of economic events in legal systems.

This problem has been solved, in both theoretical and mathematical terms, and in fact – thanks to technology available to date such as AI and blockchain – it looks much better for litig … ehm … legal third-party funders. 

Third Party Funding 3.0© opens three new lines of opportunities:

  1. AI allows to detect and file claims that would otherwise not have been viable / brought forward, such as unlocked competition law claims[2], which represent the largest chunk of the market for competition claims. See funding proposal.
  2. Human law as factor of correlation allows to calculate the unexpressed value of the global economy. Everything that, in fact, can be unlocked with litigation, allowing then a public-private IPO type of process to optimize legal systems[3].
  3. Physical modeling of the law also allows to transform debt / liabilities into new investments, thus allowing to settle litigation earlier and with less legal costs, leaving more room to creativity to optimize the investments[4].

While it may be true that the outcome of one single judgement does not depend on the fluctuations of the financial economy, legal reality certainly determines the ups and downs of the litigation funding (and any other) market. Otherwise, we could not explain the rise of litigation funding in the post-financial crisis for instance, or the shockwaves propagated by judgements like PACCAR.

The flip side is that understanding and measuring legal reality, as well as leveraging on modern technologies and innovative legal instruments, the market for legal claims and legal assets is much bigger and sizeable than with the standard litigation financial model.

In order to test Litigation Funding 3.0, I am presenting the following proposal:

10 MILLION EUR in the form of a series A venture capital type of investment to cover one test case's litigation costs, tech, book-building and expert costs aimed at targeting three already identified global or multi-jurisdictional mass anticompetitive claims in the scale of multi-billion dollars, whose details will be provided upon request.

Funder(s) get:

  • Percentage of claims' return as per agreement with parties involved;
  • Property of the AI / blockchain algorithm;
  • License of TPF 3.0.

The funding does not cover: additional legal / litigation / expert / etc. costs.

Below is the full proposal:

THIRD PARTY FUNDING 3.0© & COMPETITION LAW CLAIMS Dr2. Avv. Gian Marco Solas gmsolas@sustainab-law.eu ; gianmarcosolas@gmail.com ; +393400966871 
AI: Artificial Intelligence                  ML: Machine Learning                    TPF: Third Party Funding
GENERAL SCENARIO FOR COMPETITION LAW DAMAGE CLAIMS – IN SHORT
Competition authorities around the globe are rapidly developing AI / ML tools to scan markets / economy and prosecute anti-competitive practices. This suggests a steep increase in competition claims in the coming years, in both volume and scope.  AI also reduces the costs and time of litigation and ML allows to better assess its risks and merit, prompting for a re-modelling of the TPF economic model in competition claims considering empirical evidence of the first wave(s) of funded litigation.
CODIFICATION© IN PHENOGRAPHY© AND TPF 3.0©
New technology and ‘mathematical-legal language’, a combination of digital & quantum where the IT code is the applicable law modelled as - and interrelated with - the law(s) of nature (‘codification©’ in ‘phenography©’). On this basis, an ML / AI legal-tech algorithm has been built in prototype to learn, build and enforce anticompetitive claims in scale, to be guided by lawyers / experts / managers, with a process tracked with and certified in blockchain. New investment thesis (TPF 3.0©) for an asset class correlated to the global real economy, including the mathematical basis for the development of a complex sciences-based / empirical damage calculation to be built by experts. 
LEGAL / LITIGATION TECH INVESTMENT, COMMITMENT AND PROSPECT RETURN
10 MILLION EUR in the form of a series A venture capital type of investment with real assets as collateral for funding to any competition litigation filed with and through this algorithm, that becomes proprietary also of the funder(s). It aims at covering a first test case (already identified), full-time IT engineer, quantum experts and book-building costs. The funder(s) is(are) expected to provide also global litigation management expertise and own the algorithm. Three global or anyway multi-jurisdictional mass anticompetitive claims in the scale of multi-billion in value have already been identified. Details will be provided upon request. Funder(s) also gets license of the TPF 3.0© thesis.

Below is the abstract and table of contents from my research:

Abstract

This article aims at fostering competition litigation and market analysis by integrating concepts borrowed from physics science from an historical legal and evolutionary perspective, taking the third party funding (TPF) market as benchmark. To do so, it first combines historical legal data and trends related to the legal and litigation markets, discussing three macro historical trends or “states”: Industrial revolution(s) and globalisation; enlargement of the legal world; digital revolution and liberalisation of the legal profession. It then proposes the multidisciplinary methodology to assess the market for TPF: mainstream economic models, historical “cyclical” data and concepts borrowed from physics, particularly from mechanics of fluids and thermodynamics. On this basis, it discusses the potential implication of such methodology on the global competition litigation practice, for instance in market analysis and damage theory, also by considering the impact of modern technologies. The article concludes that physics models and the interdisciplinary methodology seem to add value to market assessment and considers whether there should be a case for a wider adoption in (competition) litigation and asset management practices.  

Table of Contents

Introduction. I. Evolution of the legal services, litigation and third party funding market(s) 1.1. Industrial revolution(s) and globalisation 1.2. Enlargement of the legal world and privatisation of justice 1.3. Digital revolution and liberalisation of the legal profession II. Modelling the market(s) with economics, historical and physics models. Third Party Funding as benchmark 2.1. Economic models for legal services, legal claims and third party funding markets 2.2. Does history repeat itself? Litigation finance cycles 2.3. Mechanics of fluids and thermodynamics to model legal markets? III. Impact on global competition litigation 3.1. Market analysis and damage theory 3.2. Economics of competition litigation and new technologies. Conclusions. Third Party Funding 3.0© and competitiveness.

--
1. Italian / EU qualified lawyer and legal scientist. Leading Expert at BRICS Competition Law & Policy Centre (Higher School of Economics, Moscow). Ph.D.2 (Maastricht Law School, Economic Analysis of Law; University of Cagliari, Comparative Law) – LL.M. (College of Europe, EU competition Law). Visiting Fellow at Fordham Law School (US Antitrust), NYU (US Legal finance and civil procedure).

2. G. M. Solas, ‘Third Party Funding, new technologies and the interdisciplinary methodology as global competition litigation driving forces’ (2025) Global Competition Litigation Review, 1.

3. G. M. Solas, ‘Interrelation of Human Laws and Laws of Nature? Codification of Sustainable Legal Systems’ (2025) Journal of Law, Market & Innovation, 2.

4. ‘Law is Love’, at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5694423, par. 3.3.

Commercial

Personal Injury Firms Want Private Equity Investment

By John Freund |

US personal injury law firms are leading a push to open the doors to private equity investment in the legal sector, even in the face of long-standing regulatory opposition to outside ownership of law practices.

According to the Financial Times, a growing number of US firms that built their practices around high-volume, billboard-driven mass tort and injury representation are quietly exploring capital injections from private equity firms. The motivation is fast growth, increased leverage, and the ability to scale operations rapidly, something traditional partner-owned firms have found difficult in a consolidating market.

The move represents a departure from the conventional owner-operator model historically favored by the legal profession, where practicing attorneys hold equity in their firms. Private capital could provide aggressive funding for marketing, case acquisition, litigation infrastructure, and operational expansion, enabling firms to ramp up nationwide acquisition of cases. Critics, however, warn that outside investors prioritizing returns could create pressure to maximize volume over client outcomes.

Private equity’s entrance into legal services is not entirely new, but the aggressive push by personal injury firms may mark a tipping point. If regulators and bar associations ease restrictions on non-lawyer ownership or passive investment, this could fundamentally reshape how US law firms are structured and financed.

For the legal funding industry, this trend signals a potential increase in demand for third-party litigation financing and capital partners. As firms leverage outside investments for growth and case volume, funding providers may find new opportunities or face increased competition.