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us department of justice
‘While No One’s Looking,’ Trump DOJ Settles Antitrust Case With Live Nation-Ticketmaster
"This settlement is the clearest sign yet that this administration serves big business, not the people."
Mar 09, 2026
The Trump Justice Department on Monday reportedly reached a tentative deal with Live Nation—the owner of Ticketmaster—to settle a Biden-era antitrust lawsuit that aimed to break up the company, accusing it of illegally monopolizing the live entertainment industry.
News of the settlement, which would not require a breakup of Live Nation, came days after the trial began, with a lawyer for the Trump Justice Department's decimated antitrust division saying last week that the company abuses its market power and earns its massive profits "through illegal action." The antitrust division's counsel in the case, David Dahlquist, was apparently not made aware of the settlement until he appeared in court Monday morning.
Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said 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."
“According to every observer, this trial was already going well for the Justice Department and states," said Hepner. "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.”
Under the settlement, which must be approved by a judge, Live Nation "would pay a fine of up to $280 million and divest itself of at least 13 amphitheaters across the country as it opens up its ticketing processes so that competitors can share in the sale of tickets," the Associated Press reported.
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), a trade group representing thousands of independent live entertainment venues, festivals, and promoters, noted in a statement that the reported $280 million settlement amount "is the equivalent of four days of [Live Nation's] 2025 revenue, which means they could potentially make it back by this Friday."
"The reported settlement does not appear to include any specific and explicit protections for fans, artists, or independent venues and festivals," said Stephen Parker, NIVA's executive director. "Reported details also indicate that ticket resale platforms could be further empowered through new requirements for Ticketmaster to host their listings, which would likely exacerbate the price gouging potential for predatory resellers and the platforms that serve them."
"If these facts are true," Parker added, "NIVA views this as a failure of the justice system."
And Trump pardons Ticketmaster while no one’s looking. pic.twitter.com/ZEFcSomb05
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 9, 2026
The antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation was filed in 2024 after a nearly two-year investigation launched amid mounting public outrage aimed at Ticketmaster, spurred in part by its botched presale of Taylor Swift concert tickets in 2022. Then-President Joe Biden's Justice Department filed the complaint in partnership with 30 state attorneys general, most of whom vowed Monday to continue the fight without the Trump administration's support.
"For years, Live Nation has made enormous profits by exploiting its illegal monopoly and raising costs for shows," said New York Attorney General Letitia James. "My office has led a bipartisan group of attorneys general in suing Live Nation for taking advantage of fans, venues, and artists, and we are committed to holding Live Nation accountable."
The settlement deal comes weeks after Gail Slater, the former head of the Justice Department's antitrust arm, was pushed out by DOJ leadership. Prior to Slater's removal, Live Nation executives and lobbyists had reportedly been negotiating the terms of a possible settlement with senior Justice Department officials outside of the antitrust office, heightening corruption concerns.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement that "this settlement amounts to a slap on the wrist that tinkers around the edges of the real problem: Live Nation’s monopoly."
"Instead of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Live Nation will now get to continue forcing the vast majority of live venues to use Ticketmaster," said Peterson-Cassin. "Following the ousting of Gail Slater and the gutting of the government’s antitrust enforcement capabilities, this settlement is the clearest sign yet that this administration serves big business, not the people."
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Federal Judge Orders Trump Admin to Refund Billions of Dollars to Businesses That Paid Illegal Tariffs
One organizer called the ruling a "victory for small businesses who have paid billions in unlawful tariffs and deserve their money back."
Mar 05, 2026
US customs officials are due to report to the Court of International Trade in New York on Friday to detail their plans for issuing billions of dollars in refunds to American businesses that paid tariffs which were struck down by the US Supreme Court last month.
On Wednesday, Judge Richard Eaton at the federal trade court ruled that "all importers of record" are "entitled to benefit" from the Supreme Court ruling that found President Donald Trump had illegally invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on more than 300,000 US businesses that import goods, the vast majority of which were small businesses, as a central policy of his economic agenda.
The Supreme Court found Trump could not use the IEEPA to unilaterally set tariffs.
Eaton ruled in a case brought by Atmus Filtration, a company based in Nashville, Tennessee, which filed one of about 2,000 lawsuits at the trade court seeking refunds for the tariffs.
US Customs and Border Protection is likely to appeal the decision or “seek a stay to buy more time," former US trade official Ryan Majerus told NBC News, but Eaton did not appear convinced Wednesday when a Justice Department lawyer Claudia Burke, said in court that issuing refunds en masse would be time-consuming for the CBP and would necessitate the manual review of millions of entries.
"We live in the age of computers," said Eaton. "It must be possible for Customs Service to program its computers so it doesn't need a manual review.
Burke also told Eaton that the administration hadn't determined its position on refunding the tariffs, to which the judge replied: "Your position is clear. The Supreme Court told you what your position is."
Eaton noted that refunds are processed every day by CBP through a process called "liquidation" when goods are imported through the agency. CBP issues an accounting of what is owed by the importer, and the company has 180 days to formally contest its duties. The judge ordered customs officials to stop collecting tariffs on goods currently in the liquidation process and to recalculate duties for goods that were past the 180-day window, without the illegally imposed tariffs, resulting in a refund.
“Customs knows how to do this,” said Eaton. "They do it every day. They liquidate entries and make refunds."
Atmus Filtration estimated in court filings it had paid $11 million in illegal tariffs. The federal government collected $130 billion in tariffs under the IEEPA last year, and according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, could ultimately owe $175 billion in refunds to businesses.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said the Trump administration "must move quickly to reimburse the thousands of small businesses in Virginia and across the country that bore the brunt of President Trump’s harmful and illegal tariffs."
Dan Anthony, executive director of the We Pay the Tariffs coalition, called the ruling a "victory for small businesses who have paid billions in unlawful tariffs and deserve their money back."
"The court acted swiftly and correctly," said Anthony. "Now the ball is in the government's court and small businesses are concerned they will drag this out further. American small businesses have waited long enough. A full, fast, and automatic refund process is what these businesses are owed and anything less is unacceptable."
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'No Safety in Appeasement': Law Firms That Fought Trump Vindicated as DOJ Drops Cases
"Another significant victory for the rule of law over Trump's reign of lawlessness," said Rep. Jamie Raskin.
Mar 03, 2026
Congressman Jamie Raskin said the US Department of Justice's decision Monday to abandon its legal cases against law firms that refused to capitulate to President Donald Trump should serve as "a reminder that those who fight back against authoritarianism are winning."
The DOJ asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to dismiss its cases against law firms including Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block, which won legal challenges they filed last year after Trump issued executive orders saying they should lose government contracts and their employees should be blocked from government buildings.
Those executive orders were signed because the firms represented and employed high-profile Democrats and other opponents of Trump.
Other law firms, including Skadden Arps and Paul Weiss, angered lawyers within their ranks and the larger legal community when they signed deals with Trump; the latter firm agreed to end its internal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and provide $40 million in free legal work for the president and causes he supports.
The Trump administration's decision on Monday proved, said Raskin (D-Md.), that "there’s no safety in appeasement.”
“When the Trump administration tried to bully and silence law firms by banning them from federal buildings, courthouses and contracts, a handful—like Susman Godfrey, Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—fought back," said Raskin. "Today, those firms forced Trump to back down and abandon his blatantly unconstitutional effort to punish lawyers, clients, and causes because Trump disagrees with their speech. Meanwhile, the firms that chose to roll over saddled their associates and partners with doing billions of dollars-worth of free legal work for Trump, his twisted administration and his MAGA allies."
While other firms caved to Trump's demands last year, the companies that didn't quickly won legal victories, with one federal judge saying the executive order targeting Jenner & Block was “doubly violative of the Constitution" because it targeted the clients it represents as well as a lawyer it once employed—Andrew Weissman, who was part of former special counsel Robert Mueller's team that investigated Trump.
“This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the executive branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers," US District Judge John Bates wrote last May. "It thus violates the Constitution and the court will enjoin its operation in full.”
"This episode will be remembered as demonstrating the difference between institutions that had the ethical courage to uphold the Constitution and fight bullying and then won, and those that compromised their ethics and gained nothing."
Jenner & Block said Monday that "the government’s decision to withdraw its appeals makes permanent the rulings of four federal judges that the executive orders targeting law firms, including Jenner & Block, were unconstitutional."
"Our partnership is proud to have stood firm on behalf of its clients, and we look forward to continuing to serve them—guided by these bedrock values—for many decades to come," said the firm.
Brian Hauss, deputy director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project at the ACLU, said the DOJ had finally admitted "what everyone knew on Day 1: There is no way to defend these unconstitutional executive orders."
“This shameful assault on the rule of law has failed, thanks to the brave lawyers who refused to compromise their integrity," said Hauss.
Vanita Gupta, former associate attorney general under the Biden administration, told NBC News that the law groups that struck deals with the White House had "undermined the rule of law and the legal profession in this country."
"This episode will be remembered as demonstrating the difference between institutions that had the ethical courage to uphold the Constitution and fight bullying and then won, and those that compromised their ethics and gained nothing," Gupta said. "Let’s hope that media companies, universities, and other organizations pay heed."
In addition to his attacks on law firms, the president has threatened universities with funding cuts and federal investigations into what the White House views as antisemitism and extremism on campus and the colleges' efforts to promote diversity and inclusion.
At least six universities have struck deals with Trump. The University of Pennsylvania agreed to ban transgender student athletes from participating on women's sports teams and Columbia University agreed to further crack down on campus protests like those that erupted in 2024 against US support for Israel's assault on Gaza—protests that both the Biden and Trump administrations claimed were antisemitic.
Harvard sued the administration over its decision to freeze $2.2 billion in research funding and was granted a restraining order last year to protect international students whom the White House had threatened with visa restrictions.
On Monday, Raskin said the DOJ's decision to back down from the attacks on law firms was "another significant victory for the rule of law over Trump's reign of lawlessness."
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