Former DOJ Antitrust Attorneys Slam Live Nation Settlement as Remedies Fight Intensifies

Two former senior Department of Justice antitrust attorneys who helped build the government’s case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster are now publicly criticizing the department’s abrupt settlement with the company, sharpening scrutiny of a deal state attorneys general rejected before going on to win a landmark jury verdict.

Speaking Monday at the National Independent Venue Association’s annual conference in Minneapolis, former DOJ antitrust officials David Dahlquist and Roger Alford offered pointed criticism of the federal government’s handling of the case, according to Variety. Both men played roles in the Antitrust Division during key stages of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster litigation and said the settlement cut against the strength of the case DOJ had prepared.

“When I stood up and gave the opening statement in this case, I believed that we were going to win,” Dahlquist, the former Deputy Director of Litigation who led the case for DOJ, said during the session. “And when the settlement was entered, I still believed we were going to win,” he added. “I knew the case, I knew the witnesses, I knew the evidence.”

Dahlquist said he was not involved in settlement negotiations and did not see the terms until the morning they were announced in court.

“I was neither asked nor did I provide input into that settlement that was ultimately entered into by the Department of Justice,” Dahlquist said, according to Variety.

The remarks add a new layer of insider criticism to a settlement already facing political, legal and industry scrutiny. The DOJ deal, reached shortly after trial began, allowed Live Nation and Ticketmaster to avoid the structural remedies — including a breakup — that the federal government had previously pursued. A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general refused to accept the settlement, continued the trial, and secured a jury verdict in April finding Live Nation and Ticketmaster liable for illegal monopolization.

Former DOJ Officials Say Settlement Undercut a Winnable Case

The DOJ’s withdrawal from the trial shocked many observers after years of investigation and litigation and was widely viewed as the federal government’s most significant challenge to Live Nation/Ticketmaster since the 2010 merger settlement that combined the dominant concert promoter with the dominant primary ticketing platform.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing the case, also expressed frustration when the settlement was revealed after trial had already begun. According to Variety, the judge said the parties’ conduct “strains the bounds of responsible conduct” and fell short of the court’s expectations.

Alford, a Notre Dame Law School professor and former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ Antitrust Division, has been among the settlement’s most forceful critics. In prepared testimony submitted last month for a congressional forum titled “Corruption Takes Center Stage: How the Live Nation–Ticketmaster Settlement Threatens Antitrust Enforcement,” Alford described the case as “one of the most important monopoly cases in modern history” and argued that the DOJ’s proposed resolution reflected “selective non-prosecution” of a politically connected company.

Alford repeated that criticism this week, saying he was fired from DOJ in July 2025 after standing up to inappropriate lobbying around antitrust cases.

“We wanted to resolve these cases on the merits,” Alford said. “There was lobbying that was occurring … in the Live Nation/Ticketmaster case. We stood up to that and said ‘That’s wrong’ and, by doing that, we were fired.”

Alford, who has described himself as a “conservative populist antitrust scholar,” has argued the Live Nation settlement is not merely a weak litigation outcome, but a test of whether antitrust enforcement can be insulated from political favoritism. He wrote that it was “deeply troubling that the Antitrust Division is engaged in selective non-prosecution of political allies in critical cases such as Live Nation/Ticketmaster.”

Settlement Remains Under Court Review

The federal settlement remains subject to judicial review under the Tunney Act, which requires courts to determine whether certain antitrust settlements are in the public interest. That review has taken on new significance because the states went on to win the case after DOJ stepped aside.

The state plaintiffs have since asked the court to impose remedies that go far beyond the federal settlement, including divestiture of Ticketmaster and the sale of a sufficient number of large amphitheaters. They have also sought restrictions on retaliation and on tying access to venues or concerts to the use of Live Nation’s ticketing or promotion services.

Live Nation has denied wrongdoing and has vowed to fight the verdict. In response to the states’ breakup request, Live Nation executive Dan Wall called the proposal “performative and political,” arguing the jury verdict does not justify forcing a Ticketmaster divestiture.

The remedies fight now sits at the center of the case. The federal settlement offered conduct-based relief, including changes tied to exclusivity and venue ticketing arrangements. Critics say those restrictions do not meaningfully address Live Nation’s integrated power across promotion, ticketing, venues, artist relationships and tour routing. That structure, they argue, allows the company to reinforce dominance across markets.

That concern has been central to independent venue and promoter criticism for years. NIVA and other industry groups have argued that Live Nation’s control over multiple layers of the live entertainment business allows the company to use leverage in one market to reinforce power in another, making behavioral remedies difficult to monitor and easy to evade.

States’ Verdict Changed the Settlement Debate

The states’ April jury win reshaped the case. Before the verdict, DOJ supporters could argue that settlement provided immediate relief while avoiding the uncertainty of continued litigation. After the verdict, critics argue the states proved DOJ had abandoned a strong case.

At a congressional forum in May, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state coalition would seek structural remedies because behavioral restrictions had already failed to restrain Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s market power.

“Behavioral remedies have proven inadequate,” Bonta said. “It’s time for structural remedies.”

Bonta said those remedies could include divestiture of Ticketmaster, a full breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, or broader separation of venue and artist management components. Other witnesses at the forum, including independent promoter Jerry Mickelson of Jam Productions and Crowbar owner Tom DeGeorge, argued that a Ticketmaster split alone may not be enough if Live Nation retains control over tours, venues, festivals, artist management or other business lines that could be used to suppress competition.

That same theme resurfaced in the NIVA discussion, where the criticism came not only from industry participants but also from former DOJ insiders who said the government walked away from a case it was positioned to win.

A Broader Fight Over Antitrust Enforcement

The Live Nation/Ticketmaster case has become both a ticketing industry battle and a broader political fight over antitrust enforcement. For consumer advocates, independent venues and state enforcers, the jury verdict is evidence that the company’s power can be successfully challenged in court. For critics of the DOJ settlement, the question is why the federal government accepted a deal that left Live Nation and Ticketmaster intact when the states secured a verdict soon afterward.

Alford has framed the issue in stark terms. In his congressional testimony, he argued that the settlement’s “precise details” may emerge through the Tunney Act process, but that the deal itself was so weak that more than 30 state attorneys general rejected it and took the case to a successful verdict.

For Ticketmaster critics, that sequence is now central to the remedies debate. The states’ victory gives Judge Subramanian a record on which to consider structural changes, while DOJ’s settlement remains under review as a proposed resolution that critics say failed to address the monopoly power established at trial.

The question now is whether the case produces a remedy capable of reshaping the live entertainment market, or whether Live Nation and Ticketmaster emerge with another set of restrictions critics say the company can absorb as a cost of maintaining dominance.

For NIVA’s Stephen Parker, the former DOJ officials’ willingness to speak publicly marked a notable moment in that fight.

“Those are heroes,” Parker said of Dahlquist and Alford.