Re-file date granted for Coachella antitrust suit

The anti-competition lawsuit filed against AEG and Coachella by Oregon promoter Soul’d Out has been partially dismissed by US federal judge Michael Mosman, who granted AEG’s motion to dismiss the antitrust claims – but declined to rule on other elements of the suit.

In an interview with Billboard, Soul’d Out’s lawyer, Nika Aldrich, who filed the suit against Coachella, revealed that several artists, including Bangas, SZA and Daniel Caesar, approached to perform at Soul’d Out Festival in Portland, Oregon, were unable to do so owing to Coachella’s ‘radius clause’ – an alleged 1,300-mile restriction on artists playing other festivals for five months around their Coachella show.

According to Aldrich, Soul’d Out has also been given the option of re-filing the antitrust suit should the plaintiff revise its definition of “relevant markets”.

“Establishing the correct product market is something the courts require with a degree of particularity [when assessing an antitrust dispute],” he explains.

Soul’d Out has been given a deadline of 25 October to re-file.

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