{"id":656903,"date":"2026-06-25T04:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656903\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T04:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:28:14","slug":"paramount-warner-bros-merger-set-for-european-union-approval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656903\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Set for European Union Approval"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRegulatory officials in Brussels are expected to greenlight Paramount\u2019s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a Financial Times report<\/a>, following its approval earlier this month by the U.S. Justice Department\u2019s Antitrust Division.<\/p>\n

\n\tCiting two sources familiar with the discussions, the FT reported that the European Commission was still hammering out final details of its approval of the mega-merger, which will entail that Paramount CEO David Ellison<\/a> \u201caccepts certain remedies\u201d that are \u201cdesigned to address competition concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne condition could be \u201ca requirement for Paramount to exit its joint venture with Universal Pictures, which distributes films in several international markets,\u201d the report added, cautioning that \u201ca final decision had yet to be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. stock was up about 1% as the New York stock exchange opened following the FT report.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe megadeal, inked in February after a protracted battle with Netflix, would bring bring together Paramount assets including CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures and Paramount+ with WBD\u2019s HBO and HBO Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, CNN, TNT, TBS, HGTV and more.<\/p>\n

The EU Commission\u2019s review is among the last major regulatory obstacles that Ellison must face to create a global behemoth. The deal is also undergoing regulatory review in the U.K.<\/p>\n

\n\tSaudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Abu Dhabi\u2019s L\u2019imad Holding Company and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) are jointly putting up a total of $24 billion investment into the Hollywood mega merger. But that does not seem to be an issue with the EU.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Commission has until July 7 to either approve the deal or open an in-depth probe.<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Paramount said the company does not comment \u201con any of ongoing regulatory proceedings.\u201d There was no comment from the EU Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regulatory officials in Brussels are expected to greenlight Paramount\u2019s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,16384,935,59,56,54,55,18200],"class_list":["post-656903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-david-ellison","tag-european-union","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-warner-bros-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}