In the span of one federal year, the government issued an executive order on live entertainment, put a total-price rule into force, sued the two largest resale players, settled its antitrust case against the largest ticketing company mid-trial, and watched thirty-three states win a jury verdict on every claim. Operators in Puerto Rico sit inside all of it, and the island's own courts redrew the local rules in the same twelve months.
KEY IMPLICATIONS
The Order That Set the Tone
Executive Order 14254, issued March 31, 2025, directed the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales Act rigorously, to collaborate with state attorneys general, and to ensure price transparency at every stage of the ticket purchase, secondary market included. Orders signal priorities. What followed showed this one had operational weight behind it.
The Pricing Rule Now in Force
The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, codified at 16 C.F.R. Part 464, took effect May 12, 2025. Its command is short. Any business that offers, displays, or advertises live-event tickets must state the total price, every mandatory fee included, more prominently than any other price, and must not misrepresent the nature, purpose, amount, or refundability of any fee. The rule reaches third-party platforms, resellers, and travel agents, and it leaves stricter state regimes in place.
Two developments since prove the rule has teeth. The FTC filed suit against StubHub in April 2026, alleging the platform advertised ticket prices without clearly disclosing the total price and seeking an injunction and monetary relief. And although the rule creates no private right of action, plaintiffs are already citing it as persuasive authority in state-law class actions over drip pricing, including suits seeking to claw back service charges on live-event tickets. A pricing page that fails the rule now invites two exposures at once. Congress may add a third layer, since bills codifying all-in pricing by statute, the Junk Fee Prevention Act among them, remain under consideration.
The Circumvention Docket
The enforcement wave under the BOTS Act ran on its own track through the same year. The FTC sued Key Investment Group in August 2025 over industrial-scale purchases of Eras Tour inventory, joined seven state attorneys general in a September 2025 action against Live Nation and Ticketmaster over broker access to inventory, and settled with Elite Events in 2026 after alleging the broker used overseas human pullers to collect more than 100,000 tickets. The turning point came on April 28, 2026, when a federal court held that the statute reaches circumvention in any form, automated or human. The firm examined that record, and its application to Puerto Rico, in its analysis of the BOTS Act and the Bad Bunny sale.
The Antitrust Earthquake
The Justice Department and a coalition of states sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in May 2024, alleging monopolization of primary ticketing, tying, and exclusive dealing. Trial opened in the Southern District of New York on March 2, 2026. One week in, the Department settled. The reported terms, drawn from the term sheet filed with the court, include a settlement fund of $280 million, a four-year cap on Ticketmaster's exclusive venue agreements, an obligation to open the platform so rival ticketers can list inventory, the divestiture of more than ten amphitheaters, and a fifteen percent cap on service fees at Live Nation amphitheaters. No divestiture of Ticketmaster itself, and the agreement still awaits Tunney Act review.
Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia refused the deal and kept trying the case. On April 15, 2026, the jury returned a verdict for the states on every federal and state claim, finding unlawful monopolization of primary ticketing and amphitheaters and unlawful tying, with damages set at $1.72 for each primary concert ticket sold through the anticompetitive conduct. The aftermath is now in motion. Post-trial motions were argued July 31, 2026, a remedies phase lies ahead, an appeal to the Second Circuit is promised, and Live Nation has recognized $450 million against the outcome in its own securities filings. Final relief is years away. The lesson is already settled. Federal resolution does not close state exposure, and the contracting practices that defined ticketing for fifteen years, long exclusivities, closed platforms, unconstrained fees, are being dismantled in public.
The Island's Own Year
Puerto Rico's courts moved inside the same window. On October 7, 2025, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court declared the compulsory membership requirement for public spectacle producers unconstitutional in Brutal, LLC v. COPEP, an opinion by Associate Justice Mildred Pabón Charneco with a six-vote majority, holding that the mandate violated the freedom of association while producer oversight continues through OSPEP at Hacienda. Maceira Zayas represented the prevailing plaintiffs from the trial court through the Supreme Court, and the firm's account of the decision is available here [verificar URL]. The local regulatory architecture for live events was rebuilt by litigation in the same year Washington rebuilt the federal one.
The state antitrust lesson lands here too. Puerto Rico prosecutes anticompetitive conduct under its own statute, Act 77 of June 25, 1964, 10 L.P.R.A. § 257 et seq., and the states' verdict proves that coalition litigation can extract structural change no federal settlement delivered. Whether Puerto Rico joins the next coalition in this industry is a live strategic question for every operator on the island.
What This Means
For venues and promoters, the negotiating table moved. A four-year exclusivity cap and platform-opening obligations now exist as federal settlement terms with the industry's largest player, and a jury has priced the old model's conduct by the ticket. Ticketing agreements signed under the prior assumptions deserve review at renewal, and new negotiations can borrow the settlement's architecture as market precedent.
For platforms and resellers, the compliance file has two new chapters. Every price display, primary or secondary, must lead with the total price under 16 C.F.R. Part 464, and the StubHub complaint shows the FTC reading pricing pages line by line. The BOTS Act record adds the acquisition side. Posted purchase limits, documented controls, and preserved circumvention evidence are now standing obligations of the business, and the firm's analysis of card-gated sales in the Bad Bunny presale maps how those disciplines interlock.
For everyone operating in Puerto Rico, all of it applies. The FTC's jurisdiction reaches commerce on the island, the Fees Rule governs tickets sold to and from it, and the local secondary-market debate now unfolding before Hacienda and DACO sits on top of a federal floor that hardened considerably in twelve months. The operators who treat the federal year as a compliance audit, pricing displays, purchase-limit architecture, ticketing contracts, will meet the local legislation that follows from a position of strength.
Maceira Zayas advises sponsors, promoters, venues, and ticketing platforms through its Regulatory Law and outside General Counsel practices, and counsels clients engaging with the emerging local and federal framework for live events through its Government Affairs practice.
Disclosure. Maceira Zayas serves as counsel to the Asociación de Productores y Profesionales del Entretenimiento de Puerto Rico (APPEP), and the author is a founding member of the association. The firm represented the prevailing plaintiffs in Brutal, LLC v. COPEP, the 2025 Puerto Rico Supreme Court decision discussed in this article.
San Juan, Puerto Rico · Washington, D.C.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Receipt of this publication does not create an attorney-client relationship. AI was used to assist in the preparation of this article.
