By Jorge Casuso
July 15, 2025 -- A key player in the group negotiating to resurrect Santa Monica's historic Civic Auditorium has been indicted for conspiring to rig the bidding process for an arena contract in Texas, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Timothy J. Leiweke, co-founder and CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), was indicted by a federal grand jury last week for conspiring with the CEO of competitor Legends Hospitality for an arena project at a public university in Austin, Texas, according to the indictment announced Wednesday.
Leiweke is charged with a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which "prohibits any agreement among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, or engage in other anticompetitive activity," according to the Justice Department's Antitrust Primer.
Violation of the landmark 1890 Act by an individual is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $1 million or 10 years in prison, while corporations face a maximum fine of $100 million.
OVG has agreed to pay $15 million in penalties, while Legends Hospitality has agreed to pay $1.5 million "in connection with the conduct alleged in the indictment against Leiweke," Justice Department officials said.
In a note to OVG employees obtained by Billboard, Leiweke denied rigging the bid and said he would transition from CEO to Vice Chairman and an OVG shareholder.
Chris Granger, president of the company’s OVG360 venue-services division, will step in as the new CEO.
OVG is one of five firms that form the Revitalization Partners Group, LLC (RPG), a consortium of experts that entered into an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement (ENA) with the City last July to restore and operate the shuttered 67-year-old Civic Auditorium.
According to a July 24, 2024 press release from the City, OVG is "a privately held venue development, management and hospitality services company led by Tim Lieweke, the former CEO of AEG, where he developed and oversaw LA Live, Staples Center, Los Angeles Kings and the LA Galaxy.
"Oak View, in a private-public partnership with the city of Seattle, invested over $850 million to develop and operate Amazon’s Climate Pledge Arena, the most sustainable arena in the world."
The RPG consortium is composed of experts in live entertainment, real estate development, finance, historic preservation and public-private partnerships, City officials said.
The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleges that "from approximately February 2018 through at least June 2024, Leiweke conspired with the Chief Executive Officer of a competitor to rig the bidding for the development, management, and use of (the) multi-purpose arena."
The indictment alleges that in September 2017, "Leiweke informed colleagues that he had learned another venue-services company was 'bidding against us' for the Arena Project and wanted to 'find a way to get [the competitor] some of the business' and 'get them to back down.'
In November 2017, Leiweke "informed others that he was '[m]ore than happy talking to [the competitor] about not bidding and [receiving certain subcontracts]' but had 'no interest in working with them if they intend on putting in a bid.'”
In February of 2018, Leiweke "ultimately reached an agreement with the competitor’s CEO, pursuant to which the competitor agreed that it would stand down and neither submit nor join an independent competing bid for the Arena Project.
In exchange for the agreement, "Leiweke represented that the competitor would receive Arena Project’s subcontracts. Consistent with the bid-rigging agreement, the competitor did not submit a competing bid for the Arena Project.
"OVG ultimately submitted the sole qualified bid and won the Arena Project. The arena opened to the public in April 2022, and OVG continues to receive significant revenues from the project to date," according to the indictment.
The U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Field Office are investigating the case, Justice Department officials said.
The Antitrust Division’s New York Office is prosecuting the case, with the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.
“Unfair business practices, like those employed here, make it very difficult for the American people to pursue prosperity like our founders intended,” U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas said in a statement.
“Timothy Leiweke allegedly led a scheme designed to steer the contract for entertainment services at a public university's arena to his company," added Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI New York Field Office.
“The FBI is determined to ensure that those who disregard fair competition principles do not benefit from a rigged bidding process targeting our communities and public institutions.”
