Ellie Goulding Sues Former Management Company TaP Over Undisclosed Live Nation Ties
Ellie Goulding is suing her former management company, TaP Management, in a U.K. court, alleging that her managers concealed their ownership ties to Live Nation while steering her business toward the live-events giant.
Goulding signed with TaP in 2018 and remained a client until 2025, according to Rolling Stone. During that period, she alleges, her management team repeatedly pushed her to use Live Nation and its subsidiaries for concert promotion, merchandise, and a documentary — without ever disclosing that Live Nation owned TaP outright.
The ownership chain matters. Live Nation purchased a 50.1 percent stake in TaP in 2015 through HNOE, its parent company, and bought the remaining stake in 2019, making TaP a wholly owned subsidiary. TaP was founded in 2010 by Benedict Mawson and Edward Millett, both of whom are named as defendants in the suit alongside HNOE. Live Nation itself is not a defendant.
At the heart of the complaint is a conflict-of-interest claim. Managers owe their clients a fiduciary duty — a legal obligation to act in the client's best interest, including securing the most favourable deals available. Goulding's suit alleges that Mawson, Millett, and HNOE breached that duty by funnelling her business toward a corporate parent they never told her about. If her managers were simultaneously answerable to Live Nation, the argument goes, they could not have been working solely to get her the best terms.
The defendants have not yet publicly responded to the allegations, according to Rolling Stone. Goulding is seeking unspecified compensation and damages, as well as additional relief.
TaP's roster has included some of pop music's most prominent names. Dua Lipa and Lana Del Rey have been clients, as have Goulding and, at one point, Noah Cyrus, who signed with the company for management in 2021, Billboard reported. In 2018, the same year Goulding joined, TaP expanded into recording and publishing divisions and launched a music-services branch, adding Aloe Blacc to its roster.
The suit touches a broader pressure point in the music industry: the vertical integration of live entertainment. Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter, also owns Ticketmaster and operates venues — a structure that has drawn antitrust scrutiny in both the United States and the United Kingdom. When a management company sitting between an artist and those deals is itself owned by the promoter, the question of whose interests are being served becomes harder to dismiss.
Goulding's case will turn on what she was told, when she was told it, and whether the deals she accepted would have looked different with full disclosure. For now, the allegations are just that — allegations, untested in court.
