An archive of unreleased Oasis live and rehearsal recordings has been withdrawn from auction after the band launched legal proceedings.
Littleton Auctions had listed the collection, known as The Desk Tapes, with a guide price of between GBP £1.2 million and £1.6 million.
Oasis took legal action against the band’s former sound engineer in London’s High Court on Tuesday (September 29), as first reported by Law360 UK.
The auction house confirmed the same day that the lot had been pulled from its October 3 sale, the Press Association reported.
Among the claimants named are Oasis, brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, and Sony Music Entertainment UK, with the auction house and the engineer’s son also named as defendants, according to legal records obtained by Billboard. Details of the case are not yet publicly available.
The claim is being brought by law firm Bray & Krais, which specializes in music and entertainment, the Daily Mail reported.
“Littleton Auctions confirms that the Oasis recordings known as The Desk Tapes have been withdrawn from our October 3 auction in light of legal proceedings,” said Ben Homer, Managing Director of Littleton Auctions. “We are very disappointed that we cannot offer this significant archive as planned.”
The collection was brought to sale by Owain Richards, the son of former Oasis front-of-house sound engineer Huw Richards.
Owain Richards said in a statement: “It is true that Oasis have sued me and my father to try to prevent the auction of the tapes made by my father many years ago.
“We have agreed to postpone the auction [of the tapes] to enable the legal dispute to be resolved either by litigation or otherwise in an orderly way.”
The archive covers 63 concert recordings, soundchecks, and more than 100 hours of rehearsals, alongside what reports have described as “unfiltered dialogue” between Noel and Liam Gallagher.
Huw Richards joined the Oasis crew in 1995 and served as the band’s front-of-house sound engineer until 2001, recording the material directly from the mixing desk.
He worked on the band’s Knebworth shows in August 1996.
Littleton Auctions had described the tapes in its listing as “the only master archive of its kind in existence.”
The lot was due to be sold as part of the auction house’s Icons and Artefacts sale, which will now go ahead without it.
“The rest of the sale is unaffected and will take place as normal,” added Homer. “We respect the legal process and will make no further comment on the proceedings at this stage.”
Items still listed include internal tour itineraries, original setlists, a band-played Epiphone guitar, and an original Kangol Oasis tour parka.
Oasis had signaled opposition to the sale in early September, weeks before any legal action was filed.
“The Oasis camp is aware of the auction and has expressed concerns, which is entirely understandable given the scale and significance of the material,” Homer said in a statement at the time.
“We’re handling everything with full transparency and proper legal process.
“Our focus is simply on presenting these items responsibly, with verified provenance, and allowing collectors and institutions to engage with an important part of British music history.”
Owain Richards said of his father’s archive in the auction house’s announcement: “Dad labeled everything, recorded everything and backed it all up to cassette, over and over.
“I grew up listening to these recordings.
“Oasis were part of the family as much as they were part of the culture.”
Any buyer would have been unable to commercialize the archive without the cooperation of Oasis, who retain the intellectual property rights in the recordings, the Guardian reported when the sale was announced.
That leaves the physical tapes in one set of hands and the Oasis copyrights in another.
The legal action arrives two days after the band sold out all 42 shows on their Live ’27 stadium tour.
Pollstar ranked Oasis Live ’25 the second highest-grossing worldwide tour of 2025, at an estimated USD $405,428,435 from the 36 shows that fell inside its chart year.
Oasis Live ’27 opens at Celtic Park in Glasgow on May 21, 2027, and closes at Knebworth on September 26 that year, on the site of the band’s 1996 concerts there.Music Business Worldwide
