Madison Square Garden Entertainment

Deployed facial recognition system to identify and eject attorneys from law firms in active litigation against MSGE — a retaliatory surveillance application in commercial public venues targeting thousands of people for their professional associations rather than individual conduct.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. is excluded for its operation of a sand mining facility. The company’s subsidiary, MSG Sands, extracts industrial sand used in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) operations from a site in Wisconsin. This activity constitutes extraction of a non-fuel natural resource, placing it within the extractive industries category.

Available evidence regarding the scale, revenue contribution, or operational details of this mining activity is insufficient to detail its materiality to the company’s overall business. Further investigation is required to determine the subsidiary's output, the portion of company revenue derived from sand sales, or any related environmental compliance record.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment faces allegations of using its proprietary facial recognition technology to systematically identify and deny entry to attorneys who work at law firms engaged in litigation against the company. This practice, which the company has publicly defended, transforms a standard security tool into a mechanism for retaliating against legal adversaries by barring them from public events at its venues, including concerts and sports games. The New York State Attorney General has investigated the policy, citing concerns it may violate state civil rights laws by punishing individuals for their profession and association.

While the core allegation involves discrimination and potential civil rights violations, the business model of leveraging customer data and venue control to gain an upper hand in legal disputes represents a predatory financial practice. By imposing this barrier, MSG seeks to impose economic and professional costs on opposing counsel, potentially chilling legal representation and manipulating the litigation process to its financial benefit. This conduct aligns with financial misconduct through the strategic use of corporate assets to extract value and create disadvantage for unsophisticated counterparties—in this case, individual attorneys exercising their professional duties.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment is a live entertainment company that operates venues and produces events. Its core business involves ticket sales, venue operations, and entertainment production. The gathered evidence does not document any business activity involving the extension of credit, nor any revenue lines related to payday lending, title lending, high-interest installment loans, or similar financial services. There is no evidence of exploitative lending terms or targeting of vulnerable populations for financial products. The company's documented conduct involves legal disputes and regulatory actions unrelated to lending practices. Based on available information, Madison Square Garden Entertainment does not meet the criteria for exclusion under the predatory_lending category.