The judge overseeing a lawsuit from a coalition of 12 states looking to block Paramount‘s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has scheduled a trial to start in March.
The decision marks a blow for the studio, which pushed to start the trial in November. Starting on Oct. 1, Paramount will have to pay a ticking fee of roughly $7 million per day to Warners shareholders until the deal closes. It’ll likely be on the hook for upwards of $1.5 billion, accounting for the time it takes for the court to issue a ruling on the antitrust trial.
“We respect the court’s decision and continue to believe a trial on the merits is the best and most direct way for us to prove what we’ve said from the start – this transaction is lawful, pro-competitive, and raises no antitrust concerns,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement. “The lawsuit against us has no basis in fact, economics or antitrust law. We will continue to vigorously defend the transaction and remain committed to closing as soon as possible so its benefits for the creative community and consumers can be realized.”
Last week, Paramount urged the court to start the trial in November while the states proposed to set it for April.
The trial will last 12 days, beginning on March 2 and ending on March 19. It will run from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm. The final pretrial conference will be held in February, with both sides completing briefing by the beginning of April.
With the schedule, Paramount will likely run up against a June 2027 “outside date.” If the deal isn’t closed by then, Warners has the option to terminate the merger and collect a $7 billion fee.
Paramount’s legal team is led by Beth Wilkinson, who successfully defended Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard after the FTC sued. Last month, she joined a deep bench of lawyers for Paramount that includes Jeffrey Kessler and Paul Clement.
The states, meanwhile, have brought on Richard Parker and James Weingarten, partners at the prominent law firm Milbank. Weingarten was chief trial counsel for the FTC in its failed bid to block the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal.
Facing lawsuits from the states, the Writers Guild of America and Paramount shareholders looking to stop the deal, Paramount’s bid to acquire the legacy studio is in limbo. In an earnings call on Wednesday, Paramount CEO David Ellison stressed that financing for the deal remains “in place.”
“There’s nothing at risk, and so we’re confident we’ll close the transaction, and we’re working towards that as fast as we possibly can,” he added.
In a New York Times op-ed, Ellison stressed that the merger has been politicized, with the states primarily looking to stop him from owning CNN.
“I believe this fight is not really about market share … I believe a plainer worry sits beneath the briefs and the news releases: the news. The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN. There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions,” Ellison wrote. “Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”
