COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

In the early months of the pandemic, as lawmakers toiled on an aid package for shuttered concert halls and other performance venues, a major company lobbied to be included in the relief.


Live Nation Entertainment — the corporate parent of Ticketmaster and a dominant force in the entertainment industry — urged Democrats and Republicans in Congress to let it be directly eligible for the $15 billion emergency relief program, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.


Congress was wary of allowing grants to publicly traded companies such as Live Nation, worrying that the funds could be used to bail out stock market investors. In the end, lawmakers wrote the law to exclude public companies, as well as firms they own or control.

But the parameters set by Congress and the Small Business Administration, which disbursed the funds, allowed several companies in which Live Nation has significant investments to receive grants: Nearly $19 million went to firms listed as subsidiaries on Live Nation’s 2022 securities filings or in which Live Nation has a substantial, though not majority, ownership stake, according to a Washington Post review of Securities and Exchange Commission filings, state corporate documents and SBA data, as well as interviews with executives at companies that received grants.

The grants do not appear to have violated the law or any rules set by the SBA.
Nevertheless, the revelation demonstrates how a large company with stakes in hundreds of smaller businesses could, while following the rules, reap a benefit that some legislators didn’t want. And it shows that how agencies implement a law can be just as important as the way it is written by Congress.

“When we wrote this, we specifically didn’t want these publicly traded companies — Live Nation foremost among them — to get their hands on this money,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a key co-sponsor of the relief legislation. “I did not want Live Nation getting a nickel.”…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/22/live-nation-pandemic-aid/