Paramount-Warner Bros merger is moving forward.
A federal judge has passed the settlement.
The deal is greenlit after several delays.
The controversial Paramount-Warner Bros. merger has been greenlit.
A federal judge has approved the Sept. 21 settlement between Paramount and a group of state Attorneys General that sued to prevent its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. Obstacles are now cast off.
Paramount-WBO Merger Greenlit
“The Court finds the proposed consent decree represents a reasonable factual and legal resolution of the dispute,” Martínez-Olguín wrote in her order. She determined that the proposed settlement agreement “reflects a procedurally sound resolution.”
“The parties reached their agreement following highly contested, however brief, litigation, and they reached their agreement following what they report to have been several rounds of in-depth negotiations,” the judge wrote.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta stressed, “We are pleased the court has approved our settlement. Our settlement with Paramount resolves our antitrust concerns in every market we brought in our case, protects competition and consumer choice, and centers the needs, concerns, and futures of California workers.”
Referring to the spate of concern and apprehension over the merger, Martínez-Olguín acknowledged the “dismay at many of the proposed consent decree’s provisions. However, a proposed consent decree like this one represents a negotiated settlement that does not fully remediate an alleged violation or even necessarily resolve the ultimate factual and legal issues of a case.”
She underlined that “these hopes and desires for the proposed consent decree to reach farther – to achieve more – do not rise to the level of legal violations upon which the Court can reject the parties’ negotiated resolution.”
Having failed in stopping the deal, Block the Merger Wednesday stated, “In years to come, we’ll be able to point to this failure to put consumers over the monied interests of corporate consolidation as the tipping-point moment for media in this country. Allowing the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger to move forward with no meaningful structural remedies will cost jobs, mute creativity, weaken independent journalism, and damage our First Amendment rights. The ripples of this merger will be far-reaching, long-lasting, and impossible to contain.”
Paramount will allocate just $5 million per year to acquire indie films.
