Paramount Settles Antitrust Suit Over Warner Bros. Deal

Paramount has cleared the biggest hurdle standing between it and a $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The company reached a deal Monday with a coalition of states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who had argued in an antitrust lawsuit that the merger would give one company outsized control over cable TV and big-budget films, reports the New York Times. The lawsuit was due to go to trial in March, notes CNBC, and would have held up the deal at least through the middle of next year.

To move the acquisition forward, Paramount agreed to concessions, sources say: creating a board of journalists to safeguard the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News, committing to release 30 films in theaters annually, and pledging an extra $1.5 billion for movie production over five years. If completed, the merger would fuse Paramount's studio with Warner Bros., combine Paramount+ and HBO Max under one roof, and place CNN and CBS News under the expanding influence of CEO David Ellison. Shares of both Paramount and Warner Bros. were up Monday morning over news of the settlement, notes Yahoo Finance.