{"id":658392,"date":"2026-06-26T00:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/658392\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T00:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T00:08:15","slug":"paramount-warner-bros-merger-overseas-will-eu-u-k-approve-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/658392\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Overseas: Will EU, U.K. Approve Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWith Paramount\u2019s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery likely to soon get the go-ahead from the European Union<\/a>, the next question will be whether the\u00a0U.K.\u2019s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA),\u00a0will follow suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe prospects are that the U.K. won\u2019t block the deal, but may throw in an extra hurdle, according to Max von Thun, director of Europe at the Brussels-based Open Markets Institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe CMA has two options, according to Von Thun. Either they follow suit with the EU, or \u201cthey decide to be tougher,\u201d he said. This would involve a longer investigation and imposing some additional \u201cremedies\u201d beyond those being reportedly requested by Brussels.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the Financial Times and other outlets, the European Commission\u2019s anti-trust watchdog is currently hammering out final details of its approval of the mega-merger and discussing the condition that Paramount would have to exit its United International Pictures joint venture with Universal. UIP is currently active as a distributor in several European territories, including Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland and Sweden.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think Paramount will be perfectly happy to dump that, if it means they get their merger approved in the whole of Europe,\u201d Von Thun said.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in the U.K., the CMA could also require further remedies such as \u201csome binding commitments on things around film releases,\u201d he noted, adding: \u201cI could potentially see that happening, because the creative industries and the film industry in the U.K. are so strong.\u201d Ultimately, however, he does not expect the CMA to block the deal because \u201cthe transatlantic relationship is still quite an important thing for the U.K.,\u201d he said, after pointing out that Donald Trump has \u201cgiven this deal his blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount\u00a0CEO David Ellison<\/a> has pledged to\u00a0release\u00a0a combined 30\u00a0films\u00a0a year from\u00a0Paramount\u00a0and\u00a0Warner Bros. in the U.S.,\u00a0with a minimum 45-day window.\u00a0<\/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

\n\tIn the U.K, in addition to merging the two major film studios, the deal will bring streamers Paramount+ and recently launched HBO Max under the same ownership, as well as U.K. broadcaster 5 and TNT Sports.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deadline for the CMA to announce its decision over whether it will approve the deal or refer the merger for a more in-depth probe is Aug. 7, but this could be extended.<\/p>\n

\n\tVon Thun pointed out that \u201cthe U.K. is obviously a much smaller market and political player than the EU.\u201d However, the fact that Saudi 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 megadeal does not seem to be an issue in Europe. At least not in terms of any concerns about indirect influence that their countries could exert on news and entertainment content.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCNN are not as big a player in Europe [as they are in the U.S.], so in relation to CNN and Gulf states interfering in their programming, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a problem,\u201d he said. As for whether they could try to promote production of more conservative films or works geopolitically favorable to the Gulf States, \u201cthat really hasn\u2019t been part of the debate at all,\u201d Von Thun noted. The only discussions in Europe have been whether the deal may have received unfair funding from Gulf investors under the EU\u2019s Foreign Subsidies Regulation, but even that \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem like something anyone\u2019s worried about,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tA spokesperson for Paramount on Wednesday 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":"With Paramount\u2019s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery likely to soon get the go-ahead from the European…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658393,"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-658392","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\/658392","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=658392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}