The Gavel: Live Nation, DOJ antitrust deal spurs questions

The Hill's weekly courts news digest.

By Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld   |   Wednesday, March 11 By Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee Wednesday, March 11 © Associated Press Live Nation, DOJ antitrust deal spurs questions The Justice Department's surprise settlement with Ticketmaster parent Live Nation in its lawsuit alleging the entertainment behemoth holds an illegal monopoly on the ticketing industry has turned attention toward the Trump administration's approach to antitrust.   The agreement, which must still be approved by a judge, would require the company to cap service fees at 15 percent, let competitors sell tickets through its platform and cut back arrangements with certain venues.   It would also have Live Nation pay out $280 million in civil penalties to the states that sued and extend the company's consent decree with the DOJ for eight more years, allowing oversight to continue.  But the deal notably would not force the company to sell Ticketmaster — the chief goal DOJ and the states set out to achieve.  The Justice Department sued Live Nation in 2024 under former President Biden, contending it blocked competition in the live entertainment industry and drove up prices for American consumers.  The Biden administration took an aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement, abiding the "whole-of-government" approach to competition policy that Biden ordered in his first year in office.   When President Trump returned to the White House, it was hotly debated whether the new administration would pick up the mantle.   Trump picked Gail Slater, a veteran tech lawyer who was a senior adviser to Vice President Vance when he was a senator, to lead DOJ's antitrust division. The move initially signaled a continuation of strong-armed antitrust enforcement, particularly against Big Tech.  Now, a shift is coming into focus.   In August, Trump revoked Biden's executive order. DOJ's antitrust division lauded the decision as an "opportunity to continue its work to recalibrate and modernize" the government's approach to competition policy, criticizing Biden's approach as "overly prescriptive and burdensome."   By February, Slater was out. Less than a year into leading the division — a stint marked by tensions with top Trump officials — she abruptly announced her resignation.   The shift should perhaps not come as a surprise. In Trump's first term, his DOJ was much more likely to strike a deal as a means to enforce antitrust laws.   According to research by the law firm WilmerHale, the Justice Department reached 80 settlements with remedies during the first Trump administration. That dramatically declined to just 23 settlements with remedies during the Biden administration.  News of the Live Nation settlement landed just one week into the landmark trial.  CEO Michael Rapino said Monday that the proposal marks a "major step in improving the concert experience for artists and fans" nationwide.   But the terms sparked bipartisan outrage from the states, who say they shouldn't be cut off at the knees.  New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said Monday that her state "cannot agree" to the deal, which she contended fails to address the monopoly at the heart of the case and would benefit Live Nation at consumers' expense.  Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R), calling Tennessee the "music capital of the world," said it "threatens the heartbeat of our culture" for corporate monopolies to act as a gatekeeper to live entertainment.   "We respect the right of each litigant to make their own decision about whether to settle in the middle of trial," he told The Gavel in a statement Tuesday. "As for us, we will continue to litigate in this case to make sure that in Tennessee, the music never stops."  The states have asked for a mistrial, writing in court papers that the settlement "materially and irreparably prejudiced" them before the jury and switched up the playing field, including by jeopardizing their access to experts, witnesses, trial exhibits and support staff.   U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, the Biden appointee overseeing the case, did not rule on their request Tuesday and instead ordered the states to engage in settlement talks with Live Nation, according to multiple reports.  If no deal is reached, Live Nation may be forced to face a jury, nonetheless.   Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill's weekly courts newsletter from Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld. Click above to email us tips, or reach out to us on X (@ByEllaLee, @ZachASchonfeld) or Signal (elee.03, zachschonfeld.48).   Not already on the list? Subscribe here. IN FOCUS Cyberattacks on judiciary; Gorsuchs's jury trial rights; TPS pileup Cyberattacks spur judiciary to act  Cyberattacks against the judiciary are accelerating the end of the software that lawyers have used for nearly three decades to file federal court documents.  The announcement came at Tuesday's biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference, the judiciary's policy-making arm. Testing begins this year.  CM/ECF was originally rolled out in the late 1990s. It helped standardize case management systems in federal courts across the country. Lawyers have used it to file more than 1 billion documents in total.  But in 2026, the software is clunky and outdated, to put it lightly.  Lawyers have long clamored for an upgrade. Many anticipated improvements are coming, including better functionality for the public searching records on PACER.  But primarily, the upgrade is about security. The courts have faced cyber risks ever since they've went digital, and judges say escalating cyberattacks punctuated the necessity to pick up the pace.  "We have been for the last several months embarked upon an effort to try to find ways to get this project done faster, because we need to," Judge Michael Scudder, who chairs the conference's IT committee, told reporters Tuesday.  In August, the judiciary's administrative office reported a series of "sophisticated and persistent" attacks.   The agency said that the vast majority of documents filed within the system are not sealed from public view. However, some are.    "These sensitive documents can be targets of interest to a range of threat actors," the judiciary said at the time.   Politico reported that the sweeping breaches may have exposed sensitive court data across several states, including the names of confidential informants in criminal cases in multiple district courts.   It led many courts to implement immediate changes, including restricting electronic access to sealed filings.  But broad concerns have persisted about CM/ECF, spurring a more dramatic overhaul.  The judges said that the district courts would see updates first, followed by appellate and bankruptcy courts. The "overwhelming majority" of the initiative is expected to last two to three years.  "It's really very, very important to the work we do in the judiciary and moving forward to the work we do to make sure we have a very secure system," said U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, chairman of the conference's case management committee. Jury right's best friend: Neil Gorsuch  Justice Neil Gorsuch is cementing his reputation as a fervent defender of the constitutional jury trial right.  Trump's first Supreme Court appointee, Gorsuch has a long history of voting for more expansive views of both criminal defendants and civil litigants' jury trial rights under the Sixth and Seventh Amendments.  This week, Gorsuch forcefully spoke out again as his Supreme Court colleagues declined to hear the latest case on the issue, Burnett v. United States.  "I can only hope we will take up another case like his soon—and that, in the meantime, lower courts will more carefully consider the Sixth Amendment's application in this context," Gorsuch wrote.  His salvo came in an appeal brought by Jaron Burnett, who served 118 months behind bars after pleading guilty to a federal crime.  At issue was the government's bid to revoke Burnett's supervised release. It would put him in jail for longer than his crime's 120-month maximum.  Everyone agrees that defendants can land additional prison time when they violate their release conditions. But Burnett claimed that when the statutory maximum is exceeded, he has the constitutional right for a jury — not a judge — to decide any contested facts.  The Supreme Court turned away his appeal Monday alongside dozens of other petitions.  "Bypassing juries, trials, and the reasonable doubt standard in this way may hold some obvious advantages for prosecutors," Gorsuch wrote in his three-page solo dissent. "But whether this arrangement can be squared with the Constitution is another thing."  It adds to a growing list of cases in which the conservative justice has raised concern about a narrow view of jury trial rights.  Perhaps most notably, Gorsuch authored the court's 2020 decision that held juries must reach a unanimous verdict to convict defendants in a criminal trial. It ended Louisiana's and Oregon's practices of allowing 10-to-2 guilty verdicts.  Two years later, Gorsuch called for overruling the Supreme Court's half-century-old precedent, Williams v. Florida, which allowed for criminal juries of less than 12 people.  "Williams was wrong the day it was decided, it remains wrong today, and it impairs both the integrity of the American criminal justice system and the liberties of those who come before our Nation's courts," Gorsuch wrote as the court declined to hear a case on the issue.  Last year, Gorsuch questioned judges who've ordered restitution based on their own factual findings, without the aid of a jury. "About that, I have my doubts," Gorsuch wrote.  And on the civil side, he's been a defender, too.  In 2024, Gorsuch was part of the 6-3 Supreme Court majority that ruled the Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house civil fraud enforcement system violated defendants' jury trial right.  TPS pileup mounts at SCOTUS  The Supreme Court intervened twice last year so Trump could end temporary deportation protections for Venezuelans.   Now, the program is back before the justices. Will it be any different?  Legal protections for 6,000 Syrians hang in the balance this round, and a ruling could come any time.  Expect the pileup to grow. On Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices his office will file an appeal concerning Haiti "in the coming days."   It sets the stage for a pivotal moment in the Trump administration's massive clawback of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program.  Created in 1990, TPS protects foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home countries due to armed conflict, natural disaster or other temporary conditions. It prevents deportation and provides recipients with a pathway to work authorization.  When Trump took office, 17 countries were designated for TPS. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has taken aim at 13: Afghanistan, Burma, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.   For now, it leaves four countries untouched: El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine. But their TPS designations will each expire later this year without new extensions.  The clawbacks have sparked a year-long legal battle that twice before reached the high court. Both times, it involved Venezuela.  In May, the justices temporarily allowed Noem to end the country's protections. It didn't deter the lower courts from ruling against Trump months later, however. The Supreme Court then rebuked those judges again.   "The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here," the justices wrote in October.  Some courts have taken note. Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Noem likely could legally terminate TPS designations for Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.  As Syria now reaches the justices, with Haiti in tow, the plaintiffs are pushing back. They say the Syria is "meaningfully distinct" from last year's Venezuela battles, even without considering the recent U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran.  "In the last several days Syria has been caught in the crossfire as the military conflict in Iran has threatened to unleash a full-scale regional war," they warned in court filings.  The Trump administration has had enough of lower judges. In addition to calling for an emergency order, it wants the justices to take up the case on their normal docket to settle Trump's TPS authority once and for all.  "Absent this Court's intervention, district courts across the country are poised to continue this unsustainable cycle," Sauer wrote.  SIDEBAR 5 top docket updates Tariff refund latest: U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton has taken charge. After initially ordering immediate compliance, he's now giving the Trump administration some breathing room. The administration says it needs as many as 45 days to stand up a system to manage the process. An update is due Thursday.  Tariff lawsuits, the sequel: Meanwhile, blue states and a libertarian firm that won at the Supreme Court last time filed lawsuits challenging Trump's new 10 percent global tariff imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Trump has threatened to raise the rate to 15 percent.  Anthropic sues: Artificial intelligence company Anthropic filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the Pentagon's decision to label the company and its Claude product as a "supply chain risk" after negotiations over safety guardrails fell apart earlier this month.    Attempted attack near Gracie Mansion: The Justice Department charged two people in connection with an attempted attack at a protest and counter-protest near the New York City governor's mansion on Saturday.   VOA layoffs, Kari Lake leadership unlawful: A federal judge voided layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) while also ruling that the U.S. Agency for Global Media's (USAGM) acting CEO, Kari Lake, unlawfully ran the independent federal agency.  In other news Bush AG speaks out: Alberto Gonzales, attorney general under President George W. Bush, wrote on Substack that it "appears to many former DOJ employees and officials that the cathedral of justice is being dismantled stone by stone." He criticized the criminal cases against Trump's political adversaries as having "failed to an embarrassing level" and urged a "recommitment to norms" at the Justice Department to secure the rule of law. Read the whole post here.   DAG at CPAC: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has been announced as a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, which is set to be held in Texas later this month.  THE ORDER LIST Cases the Supreme Court is taking up — or passing on — this term. In: Guam hazardous munition disposal   The Supreme Court took up one new case at its final conference of the February session: Department of the Air Force v. Guahan.  We previewed it last month as one to watch. The Trump administration wants the justices to greenlight the Air Force's plans to openly detonate unexploded ordinance on a Guam beach.  A lawsuit claims it failed to comply with the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires agencies to examine the environmental impacts of their actions.  The Air Force says its plan is governed by another federal law that specifically concerns hazardous waste disposal: the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.  The case is set to be heard during the court's next annual term, which begins in October.   Out: Jan. 6 defendant's pardon refusal  The justices declined to take up Jan. 6 defendant Glenn Brooks's bid to formally refuse Trump's pardon and keep fighting his conviction on appeal. The case is Brooks v. United States.  A lower court wiped Brooks' conviction following the pardon and found his appeal moot.  But Brooks wanted to spurn the pardon, casting it as a way to preserve his dignity.  "A coerced pardon undermines not only the individual's rights but also the broader public confidence in executive mercy," Brooks' lawyers wrote in court filings.  The petition never appeared to gain much traction. No justice had requested the government respond to Brooks' arguments. ON THE DOCKET Don't be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here's what we're watching for now:   Today A federal judge in Washington, D.C. is set to hold a hearing over a motion to enforce the preliminary injunction against the Trump administration blocking warrantless civil immigration arrests in the nation's capital without an individualized determination of flight risk before a person's arrest.   Another D.C. federal judge is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge brought by government unions to a May 2025 hiring plan from the Office of Personnel Management that included an essay question for federal civil service job applications that would ask how a prospective hire would advance Trump's priorities — described by the plaintiffs as "Loyalty Question."   Thursday The Trump administration is set to give an update on the status of refunds for Trump's tariffs following the Supreme Court's ruling striking the bulk of them down.  Rapper Lil Nas X is set to appear in court in Los Angeles for a preliminary hearing in his criminal case for allegedly assaulting and resisting police officers who approached him as he reportedly strode through the city's streets nearly naked last year.   Friday Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is due back in Utah state court.  A federal judge in California is set to hold a pretrial conference in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI alleging leaders violated the artificial intelligence firm's founding mission as a research lab by shifting to a for-profit structure for personal gain.  Monday A federal judge in Maine is set to hold a temporary restraining order hearing in a class-action lawsuit brought by two protesters of the Trump administration's immigration policies who claim federal agents are leveraging the government's surveillance capabilities to collect and track protestors' personal information.  Tuesday Chief Justice John Roberts is set to give remarks at Rice University.   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is set to hold oral arguments in the case of Badar Suri, a Muslim postdoctoral scholar and professor at Georgetown who is challenging his detention.  A federal judge in Washington, D.C. is set to hold a second preliminary injunction hearing in a lawsuit challenging Trump's East Wing ballroom construction project after denying preservationists' initial request to block it.   WHAT WE'RE READING The New York Times's Jonah E. Bromwich: A Year After His Arrest, Mahmoud Khalil Lives in Limbo and in Fear  Bloomberg Law's Celine Castronuovo: DOJ Shift on Political Activity Rules Breaks from Past Practice  The Albuquerque Journal's Gregory R.C. Hasman: Justice Amy Coney Barrett talks about the Supreme Court as dozens protest outside theater  The New York Times's Ann E. Marimow: An Assertive Supreme Court Turns to Curbing State Courts  Education Week's Mark Walsh: Supreme Court's Gender Identity Ruling Leaves Schools Seeking Clarity  We'll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with our coverage here. Questions? Tips? Love letters, hate mail, pet pics? Email us: elee@thehill.com and zschonfeld@thehill.com.  On Signal: @elee.03 and @zachschonfeld.48.  Privacy Policy   |   View in Browser    |   Manage Subscriptions Sign Up for Other Newsletters   |   Unsubscribe  400 N Capitol Street NW Suite 650, Washington, DC 20001 Copyright © 1998 - 2026 Nexstar Media Inc.   |   All Rights Reserved.

If you believe this has been sent to you in error, please safely unsubscribe.