Congress, Courts, State AGs Must Stop Corrupted DOJ From Letting Live Nation-Ticketmaster Off the Hook
Washington, D.C. — In response to news that the Trump-Vance Department of Justice Antitrust Division has negotiated a settlement to its landmark monopolization suit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster, just weeks after allegedly corrupt DOJ leadership pushed out antitrust chief Gail Slater, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.
“Congress should lead an investigation into corruption at the Department of Justice, and the states must continue litigating this case until there’s a breakup,” said Lee Hepner, Sr. Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “The reported settlement would be a travesty for the fans, artists, and independent promoters and venues who have risked their livelihoods to build this case and waited years for trial to proceed. Anything short of a breakup is a betrayal.”
“It is highly unorthodox for the Justice Department’s lead litigator to be left out of the loop on the settlement and highly prejudicial to the jury’s deliberations,” added Hepner. “According to every observer, this trial was already going well for the Justice Department and states. They had just won summary judgment and a jury had already heard evidence of Live Nation’s longstanding pattern of retaliation against venues who had attempted to open the market to competition. State AGs are once again left to clean up the mess left by this Administration’s incompetence.”
The Justice Department announced their proposed settlement of the case in court on Monday morning, a week into a jury trial before Judge Subramanian in the Southern District of New York. According to in-court statements, a term sheet was signed some time last week, without the Court’s knowledge and without the knowledge of the Justice Department’s lead litigator, David Dahlquist. Over the weekend, the Court continued to rule on various motions in anticipation of an orderly continuation of the jury trial on Monday morning.
Judge Arun Subramanian said that the DOJ and Live Nation’s conduct “shows absolute disrespect for the court, for the jury, for this entire process.”
A bipartisan group of States have indicated they will proceed with the trial. The states are also calling for a mistrial, which the Court will consider this week. The Court has requested the presence of Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Omeed A. Assefi, and Live Nation CEO and President Michael Rapino in court on Tuesday, March 10. Barring a mistrial or other developments, the jury trial is expected to continue on Monday, March 16.
This suspicious proposed settlement comes less than a month after the ouster of former Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater, amid reports that she clashed with high-ranking DOJ officials who turned antitrust enforcement into a corrupt, pay-for-pay operation. In the days leading up to her departure, The American Prospect reported that Live Nation was ramping up lobbying efforts to settle the case.
The Antitrust Division’s suit, filed in May 2024 under the Biden Administration, proposed structural remedies to curtail Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s self-reinforcing monopoly power across several layers of the live events business: ticketing, concert promotion, venue ownership, and artist management. Similar to remedies Economic Liberties called for in a January 2024 legal brief, the suit demands, at a minimum, the divestiture of Ticketmaster, enjoining Live Nation from continuing to engage in anticompetitive practices, and other structural relief to restore competition to the live events market.
Over 100,000 fans, artists, and industry professionals have sent letters urging the DOJ to strongly litigate this case through Economic Liberties’ Break Up Ticketmaster campaign. If the court allows the DOJ’s questionable settlement proposal, states can continue the fight. New York State AG Letitia James issued a statement indicating they would continue to litigate the case, joined by Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.
For more background on the suit and Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s monopoly abuses, read “The Case Against Live Nation-Ticketmaster” here.
Learn more about Economic Liberties’ Break Up Ticketmaster campaign here.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; international trade arrangements that promote balanced trade and benefit workers, farmers and small businesses; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.