{"id":468941,"date":"2026-09-19T09:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468941\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:50:24","slug":"paramount-and-california-ag-in-advanced-talks-to-settle-antitrust-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468941\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount and California AG in Advanced Talks to Settle Antitrust Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDavid Ellison\u2019s Paramount Skydance<\/a> is in \u201cadvanced talks\u201d with California Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a> to settle the 12-state antitrust suit that\u2019s holding up its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>, the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> Friday, citing anonymous sources. <\/p>\n

\n\tA Paramount spokesperson declined to comment. A rep for Bonta\u2019s office said, \u201cPotential settlement talks are confidential. We cannot confirm or deny whether settlement talks are occurring or their alleged substance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPer the Journal\u2019s report, the talks are \u201congoing and there is no guarantee that an agreement will be reached.\u201d Paramount and the California AG have \u201cdiscussed compromises including Paramount agreeing to operate the two companies\u2019 movie studios separately for a period rather than immediately combining them,\u201d according to the WSJ article.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Bonta has previously said that running the two companies separately \u2014 but under common ownership \u2014 would be a mere \u201cbehavioral\u201d remedy, and that he is looking for a structural remedy that would entail separate ownership.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED STORY: Who Is Rob Bonta and Why Is California\u2019s Attorney General Suing to Block Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tLater Friday, Reuters reported<\/a> that Paramount and the state AGs could reach a settlement \u201cas soon as this weekend.\u201d Among the terms on table are \u201cindependent content monitoring of CNN\u201d and a commitment from Paramount for a certain number of theatrical movie releases, per the report, which also cited anonymous sources. Ellison has repeatedly pledged that the combined Paramount-Warner Bros. would release more than 30 films<\/a> theatrically annually. These concessions, too, represent \u201cbehavioral\u201d remedies that Bonta has said he would not accept (and he has also claimed that a spin-off of CNN alone wouldn\u2019t fly, either).<\/p>\n

\n\tA judge has scheduled a trial in the matter for March 2027. Paramount had requested that the 12 states \u2014 and the Writers Guild of America, which also has filed an antitrust suit seeking to block the Paramount-WBD deal \u2014 post a $1.88 billion bond to cover its potential losses from a \u201cticking fee\u201d payable to WBD shareholders (starting as of Oct. 1 at a rate of $7 million per day) if Paramount ends up prevailing in court. A hearing on the bond motion is set for Sept. 24.<\/p>\n

\n\tEllison\u2019s $111 billion pending deal for Warner Bros. Discovery is being bankrolled in part by his mega-billionaire father, Larry Ellison, as well as the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. On Thursday, the FCC approved Paramount\u2019s petition to allow 49.5% of its equity to be held by foreign entities<\/a> if the Warner Bros. Discovery is consummated.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Ellison has internally told Paramount execs he\u2019s seriously considering relocating the company\u2019s operations \u2014 including, over a longer time horizon, its studio \u2014 out of California if Paramount is unable to close the Warner Bros. deal<\/a> by the end of September. He\u2019s floated the possibility of moving the company to Tennessee, Texas or Georgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Ellison\u2019s Paramount Skydance is in \u201cadvanced talks\u201d with California Attorney General Rob Bonta to settle the 12-state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,61135,170945,2794,26368],"class_list":["post-468941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-paramount-skydance","tag-paramount-warner-bros","tag-rob-bonta","tag-warner-bros-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}