After a month-long jury trial in Los Angeles, Hunton Andrews Kurth’s National Trial Team secured a clean-sweep victory and $16.3 million verdict for long-time client Spotlight Ticket Management, Inc. on its claims against StubHub, Inc. for breach of contract and tortious interference with contract and prospective economic advantage.  

Spotlight, a Calabasas, California-based software company that provides a state-of-the-art ticket management platform to corporate customers, was founded in 2007 by three former StubHub sales representatives. By 2013, San Francisco-based StubHub was paying significant commissions to Spotlight for sales it drove to StubHub through its corporate clients. Spotlight’s most significant business relationship was with American Express (Amex), which signed up as a Spotlight client in 2014, after years of effort by Spotlight to develop that relationship. Starting in 2014, Spotlight purchased and managed the ticket inventory that Amex made available to its Concierge card-holders, and by its 2016/2017 renewal, the relationship had grown significantly, leading to a 2017 expansion into secondary marketplace tickets (through StubHub) and the global Amex e-Hub platform, which would make Amex offerings available to card-holders worldwide, including on their mobile devices.

In 2016, Spotlight introduced StubHub to Amex as a secondary ticket management option via Spotlight’s award-winning software portal. Spotlight’s onboarding team trained and educated over 500 Amex concierges on how to best utilize the Spotlight platform’s powerful and always growing capabilities. Amex ticket purchases surged immediately, grew exponentially, and exceeded all expectations.

As the evidence showed at trial, StubHub’s top management wanted a bigger piece of the pie. Notwithstanding a handshake deal dating back to 2010, confirmed in writing in 2013, whereby StubHub agreed to pay Spotlight a 7% commission on all purchases sent to StubHub by Spotlight, StubHub often failed to pay on tickets purchased by Amex citing “software tracking issues” or a myriad of other excuses. Worse yet, as the jury found, StubHub’s senior management formulated and executed a scheme to provide false and misleading information about Spotlight to Amex, intended to disrupt and ruin the unique, mutually beneficial relationship that had developed between Amex and Spotlight over the years.

The jury found for Spotlight on all three counts being tried. On Count One, the jury awarded the full amount of commissions due Spotlight. On Counts Two and Three, the jury determined that StubHub had intentionally and knowingly interfered with the existing contracts between Spotlight and Amex, as well as the invaluable, irreplaceable, and mutually beneficial business relationship that had existed between Spotlight and Amex for many years. As Jake Struck said during Spotlight’s Closing Argument, “There was more than enough money to go around, but StubHub wanted it all.”

In the months leading to trial, Spotlight enlisted Hunton Andrews Kurth’s National Trial Team, led by Harry Manion, to formulate and execute in conjunction with Hunton partner Christopher Pardo and the Litigation Team, which had been handling the case up to the time of the final pre-trial conference, the winning trial strategy. On late Friday, May 24, the twelve person jury returned a verdict in favor of Spotlight on all counts in the amount of $16.3 million.

Spotlight CEO and Co-Founder, Tony Knopp, issued the following statement upon the rendering of the jury verdict:

“The Spotlight team could not be more pleased with this result. This is a victory for Spotlight, for affiliate partners more broadly, and for ticket purchasers across the country, and vindicates Spotlight after years of litigation. We thank the Hunton Andrews Kurth litigation team, particularly our long-time trusted counsel Chris Pardo, to whom we owe this victory, as well as Jake Struck, Larry DeMeo and lead trial counsel, Harry Manion, chair of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s National Trial Team.”

In addition to Boston-based Pardo, Struck, DeMeo and Manion, Hunton Andrews Kurth’s trial team included Washington DC-based associates Katherine P. Sandberg and Liz England, as well as National Trial Team lead paralegal Amanda Aucoin.

Spotlight’s pre-trial litigation team was led by Pardo, Sandberg and England, and included significant assistance from attorneys Ann Marie Mortimer, Torsten Kracht, Erik Kane, Jason J. Kim, Brian Bosworth, Brandon Marvisi, Nick Stellakis, Leah Nommensen, Dennis Fairbanks, Michael Pearlson, Steve Morphy, Aidan Gross, Tom Schulte, Shauna Twohig, Drei Munar, Karen Evans, Eileen Henderson and Beth Sherwood.