Washington D.C. — The Break Up Ticketmaster Coalition filed a public comment last week urging the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to reject the Department of Justice’s proposed settlement with Live Nation. The comment argues the proposed final judgment fails the Tunney Act’s public interest standard on every front: its remedies would leave Live Nation’s illegal monopoly intact, the process that produced it was tainted by political interference, and the DOJ violated the disclosure obligations that give the public any voice in the proceedings at all.

The court’s review of the settlement comes under extraordinary circumstances. Trump DOJ’s surprise mid-trial deal — reached without the knowledge of the plaintiff states or even the Department’s own deputy trial counsel — did not end the case. Instead, a bipartisan coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general carried it to verdict, and in April a jury unanimously found that Live Nation willfully acquired or maintained monopoly power in multiple markets.

That verdict changes everything. Courts defer to the DOJ when a settlement is weighed against unproven allegations, not when a jury has already found a company liable. Live Nation is an adjudicated monopolist, and a settlement crafted for an uncertain outcome can’t be the answer for a definitive verdict.

Quotes from the Break Up Ticketmaster Coalition: 

“A jury of ordinary Americans found Live Nation liable for willful monopolization. The only question before the court is whether the remedy honors that verdict or buries it,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at American Economic Liberties Project. “Hindsight is 20/20, and the DOJ’s proposed settlement would accomplish nothing more than two decades of failed consent decrees. The court’s primary obligation is to fashion a remedy that unfetters this market from Live Nation’s decades-long grip and deprives Live Nation of the fruits of its monopoly. The first step is requiring Live Nation to unwind its 2010 acquisition of Ticketmaster.”

“This settlement recycles the same behavioral conditions Live Nation already violated after 2010. It is, to put it simply, weak,” said John Breyault, National Consumers League Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud. “It divests just 13 amphitheaters while Live Nation keeps more than 265 venues, and its $280 million settlement fund amounts to roughly four days of the company’s revenue. Approving it would make April’s unanimous verdict a mere headline, instead of the enforcement action it demands.”

“A real remedy in this case would deliver relief to the millions of fans who suffer from LiveNation-Ticketmaster’s illegal, monopolistic behavior every year,” said David Goodfriend, Chairman of the Sports Fans Coalition. “The Trump DOJ’s slap-on-the-wrist figleaf settlement deal does no such thing.  The court should reject it.”

Why the Remedies Must Be Rejected: 

The remedies fail on the merits. The proposed judgment preserves Live Nation’s vertical integration with Ticketmaster, a structure the DOJ’s own 2024 complaint identified as the engine of its market power. It requires divestiture of just 13 amphitheaters while Live Nation retains more than 265 venues. It recycles behavioral restrictions and licensing requirements from the failed 2010 consent decree, conditions the DOJ itself concluded Live Nation violated. And its $280 million settlement fund amounts to roughly 1% of Live Nation’s $25.2 billion in 2025 revenue: about four days of sales.

The process was corrupted. The comment details the interference surrounding the settlement. There was the ouster of Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater weeks before trial amid clashes over the case. There was Live Nation’s hiring of what former Antitrust Division deputy Roger Alford called “a bevy of cozy MAGA friends,” including lobbyist Mike Davis, who admitted urging Slater’s firing “to anyone who would listen.” There was the addition of presidential ally Richard Grenell to Live Nation’s board amid Kennedy Center ticketing talks. There was an Oval Office meeting days before trial at which President Trump asked Live Nation’s CEO why the company hadn’t settled. Within days, it had. As the comment notes, the Tunney Act was passed precisely because Congress feared corruption and improper lobbying would warp antitrust settlements. This is the scenario the statute exists for.

The DOJ concealed what the law requires it to disclose. The Department’s competitive impact statement claims it considered only one alternative to the settlement: finishing the trial. But reporting shows DOJ lawyers drafted a demand that Live Nation spin off Ticketmaster, and the proposal ultimately sent to the company would have required it to open-source its ticketing software and give up roughly three-quarters of its amphitheaters, alternatives the Tunney Act required the Department to disclose and evaluate publicly. The comment asks the court to impose sanctions, including an adverse inference against the settlement, and to restart the public comment process so the public can respond to a complete record.

Approving this settlement would prejudice what comes next. The court has taken up the DOJ’s settlement before the remedies phase of the states’ case, the proceeding in which the jury’s verdict will actually be given effect and where the court has a legal duty to terminate Live Nation’s monopoly. The comment urges the court to ensure that entering any portion of the proposed judgment does nothing to anchor, constrain, or prejudge those proceedings. A court-approved benchmark of behavioral half-measures, set before the verdict’s remedies are even litigated, would put a thumb on the scale against the structural relief the verdict warrants.

The state attorneys general, for their part, have already sought what the DOJ would not: full structural separation of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The coalition supports the strongest possible relief in the states’ remedies proceedings and will continue fighting for a breakup, because as long as Live Nation and Ticketmaster remain one company, the incentives that produced this monopoly remain in place.

Read the coalition’s full comment here.

Learn more about the Break Up Ticketmaster Coalition here and Economic Liberties here