A major fight in the Live Nation antitrust case has erupted over two simple words: “retained amount.”

Lawyers for the state attorneys general pressing ahead with the Live Nation monopoly case say these two words are mere technical terms, used by an expert economist to calculate the alleged damage Ticketmaster has caused by reportedly overcharging customers and acting like a monopoly.

But lawyers for Live Nation say the words are more than just legal hogwash, invented by the desperate plaintiffs worried that the Live Nation monopoly case is slipping through their hands. Live Nation lawyer Alfred Pfeiffer say the phrase “retained amount” is evidence that a key government witness has lied and mislead the jury in order to build up a paper-thin legal strategy to misrepresent both Ticketmaster and the model it uses to set its fee.

The term comes from the state’s key damages expert Dr. Rosa Abrantes-Metz, an economist and professional antitrust expert and witness first hired by the DOJ to testify about potential damages in the case and concert market structure and conduct. Live Nation’s lawyers are asking the court to strike Abrantes-Metz’s testimony entirely, accusing her of delivering “false and misleading testimony.” Plaintiffs counter that the request is a “drastic remedy” built on distortions, and warn that granting it would effectively gut their damages case.

Typically, motions happen before trials begin, typically through a Daubert motion, named after the 1993 case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Daubert motions are pre-trial legal requests used to evaluate expert witness testimony and ensure expert meet legal evidentiary standards.

The fact that Live Nation is trying to toss Abrantes-Metz’s testimony after she already appeared before the jury show how heated this trial has gotten as it approaches the finish line. This is the second motion from Live Nation this month alleging serious misconduct and will play a pivotal role in future court room fights, including appeals.

What the Hell is a “Retained Amount”?

Abrantes-Mentz’s job was fairly simple — the Department of Justice hired the NYU-linked economist to create an economic model to measure competition in the ticketing business, specifically between Ticketmaster and AXS.

That’s where the term “retained amount” comes from — Abrantes-Mentz says it “refers to the portion of the ticket price charged to the fan that Ticketmaster keeps.” Ticketmaster’s retained amount averages $2.30 more than the retained amount AXS supposedly keeps. Damages, Abrantes-Mentz calculates, come from multiplying the retained amount — that $2.30 per ticket — across every ticket sold by Ticketmaster 2017 to 2024. We’re talking hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

My explanation is a bit of an oversimplification, but that’s basically it. One glaring problem with her “retained amount” theory is that it doesn’t calculate how much money Ticketmaster pays in advance to sign a client, which Ticketmaster’s attorneys argue is critical to understanding how the fees the company charges are calculated. Abrantes-Mentz acknowledges this fact, but basically says it evens out because her model doesn’t calculate the upfront fees AXS pays either.

It all kind of evens out, she seems to argue — unless it doesn’t. If Ticketmaster is more willing to advance clients money than AXS and has a much larger client base than AXS because it paid large signing bonuses to get those clients, shouldn’t that be counted in her model?

No, Abrantes-Mentz argued, “nor was it intended to be, the net per-ticket profit retained by Ticketmaster,” she wrote in an April 3 sworn statement.

“To arrive at that, one would of course deduct all manner of expenses—not just upfront payments,” like salaries, rent, and operating expenses, she wrote. That number, she concedes, could be much lower than her calculated retained amount, she says, admitting “as a logical matter, it could even be negative. But it is not economically relevant.”

That’s a weird thing to argue — that the upfront money Ticketmaster pays some clients, coupled with its expenses, means that on some ticketing deals Ticketmaster might lose money on its P+L — but that matters less than the economic figure Abrantes-Mentz made up.

Abrantes-Mentz admits that in her April 3 statement (“I have never understood Ticketmaster to be using the term ‘retained amount’ as I use it,” she wrote).

But that’s not exactly what she told the jury. Abrantes-Mentz testified that “defined retained amount as the part of the total price paid by the fan that Ticketmaster kept and that, in order to calculate such price, I used data provided by Defendants and followed their instructions on how to calculate this price.”

That’s where Live Nation’s lawyers take issue with Abrantes-Mentz. While she insists “I never meant to suggest” that the term “retained amount” was a calculation that “Live Nation uses internally,” Live Nation’s lawyers are accusing her of lying and even perjuring herself.

“That indicates a conscious, premeditated plan to give testimony creating the false impression,” that her metric was derived from Live Nation’s own framework, Live Nation attorney Alfred Pfeiffer wrote in a recent filing, even accusing the economist of committing perjury.

The states lawyers are pushing back, with lead counsel Jeffrey Kessler writing in a filing that a perjury charge requires “a willful, material falsehood—not ambiguous answers to confusing questions under the pressure of cross-examination.”

Abrantes-Metz added, “Perjury is a serious charge… I would never lie or fabricate anything to support my analyses… lying in a court of law would be anathema to my own personal code of ethics.”

Even if unintended, Live Nation’s lawyers say, that confusion is disqualifying — pointing to her own admission that she “may have misspoken or been unclear.” Besides, they argue, excluding upfront payments to venues — a key feature of ticketing deals isnt just an omission — it’s a “fundamental error.”

Plaintiffs counter that this is classic expert disagreement, not grounds for exclusion. “This battle-of-the-experts argument goes to weight, not admissibility,” Kessler writes.

A brief hearing was held on the “retained amount” debate last week, and judge Arun Subramanian denied a request by the states for more time to formulate their defense.

“I honestly want to make sure the plaintiffs are taking this seriously,” he said, before ordering Abrantes-Metz back to court today for further grilling.

He denied their request for extra time to respond, ordering a reply by Friday, and instructed the plaintiffs to prepare to bring Abrantes-Metz back to court as early as Monday.

If the testimony stands, the defense is likely to continue attacking it before the jury as confused or unreliable — rather than inadmissible. If it is tossed out, as Live Nation has requested,

This fight — over language, methodology, and credibility — is where that question comes into focus. If the court strikes Abrantes-Metz’s testimony, plaintiffs concede it would eliminate “the only expert testimony quantifying harm to fans.” That would leave the government with no clear damages model.