{"id":700576,"date":"2026-06-12T22:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700576\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T22:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:51:13","slug":"justice-department-approves-paramounts-111b-warner-bros-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700576\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department Approves Paramount’s $111B Warner Bros Acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tUPDATED with Paramount<\/a> statement: The Department of Justice has approved Paramount\u2019s pending $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros Discovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe signoff Friday by the Paramount-friendly Trump administration was confirmed to Deadline by multiple sources. No significant concessions by Paramount to the DOJ appear to have been made in order to gain the regulatory signoff, the sources indicated.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are grateful for the Department of Justice\u2019s thorough review of this transaction, as well as the work of the other agencies that have completed their reviews and provided clearance to date,\u201d a Paramount spokesperson in a statement provided to Deadline. \u201cThis deal is pro-competitive, resulting in a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology, and investment. We remain focused on completing the transaction as soon as possible and delivering its benefits to consumers, creators, and the entertainment industry as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe antitrust hurdle cleared by Paramount comes as state attorneys general in California, New York and almost a dozen other states are contemplating an antitrust suit<\/a> to put the brakes on what would become a mega-studio.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount CEO David Ellison<\/a> and his management team have promised to close the WBD deal by September 30. If they fail to do so, they have pledged to pay shareholders a \u201cticking fee\u201d of several million dollars a day. In recent days, regulators in the UK and Europe have signaled their plans to take a closer look at the transaction. Particularly with the shape of summers on the continent, if clarity is not reached by the start of August, the process will likely drag into September. <\/p>\n

\n\tNews leaking out of the approval comes the same day Paramount and the UFC (who have a $7.7 billion deal of their own<\/a>) got a gift when a federal judge killed an eleventh-hour lawsuit<\/a> to stop a UFC event at the White House on Sunday. The set of mixed-martial-arts matches, streaming live on Paramount+, will be contested on Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s 80th birthday.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"LA<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA Los Angeles billboard for UFC at the White House<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDominic Patten\/Deadline<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong opponents to the merger, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been in the forefront, and Friday she was quick to react to DOJ green light.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is terrible news for every American who doesn\u2019t want Trump-aligned billionaires to control what they watch and how much they pay,\u201d the New England senator said. \u201cThe Paramount-Warner Bros. deal has reeked of corruption and influence-peddling. This fight isn\u2019t over. State AGs must block this merger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tOut West, Golden State AG Rob Bonta\u2019s office has long stuck to its line that the\u00a0\u201cParamount\u00a0acquisition of Warner Brothers remains an active investigation, and we do not have any updates to share at this time.\u201d The CA DOJ did not respond to Deadline\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tOverseas, the much debated deal is hitting some roadblocks with UK regulators.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this week, the UK\u2019s Competition and Markets Authority declared that it had opened a \u201cmerger inquiry\u201d <\/a>into the deal. With an August 7 deadline of sorts, the CMA intends to examine if the Paramount-WBD meld could present a \u201crealistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.\u201d If the Brits believe that such a prospect is real, then a second phase in their probe will kick off \u2014 a Phase 2 that could last up to five months and gummy up the works for the merger.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a months-long death match with Netflix<\/a>, a bid-raising Paramount succeeded in efforts to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in late February, with streamer co-CEO Ted Sarandos literally at the White House for meetings as news of the deal broke. Soon after, Team Ellison said it expected to close the deal in the third quarter, which would have been a remarkably quick turnaround of a deal this size.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat turnaround that looks to be well on track now, at least in America.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, even as Australia signed off<\/a> just recently on the deal, more antitrust work is ongoing in the European Union, where a Phase 1 investigation is underway with a deadline of July 7. Experts have predicted a Phase 2 investigation is likely.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeparately,\u00a0the European Commission is examining the deal<\/a>\u00a0under Foreign \u2060Subsidies Regulations and will decide by July 14 whether to \u200bclear it or open a full investigation.\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund, Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi\u2019s L\u2019imad Holding<\/a>\u00a0are providing $24 billion in equity funding, joining the Ellisons, RedBird Capital and LionTree as investors. Paramount says the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds will be purely passive investors.<\/p>\n

\n\tBack in the U.S., where the Ellisons\u2019 closeness to \u201cgood friend\u201d Donald Trump has cast a shadow on the merits of the potentially disruptive merger, Democratic lawmakers have asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in his role as chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to review potential national security risks of foreign ownership. One issue some have raised is a congressionally mandated 25% cap on foreign ownership of American broadcast stations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Justice Department\u2019s approval was expected, which is why many opponents of the transaction had set sights on state attorneys general. Still, the DOJ\u2019s decision to sign off on could have an impact on a state legal challenge, as judges may question why the transaction is problematic at the state level but not for federal authorities.<\/p>\n

\n\tDemocrats have charged that the DOJ has been politicized, including on antitrust matters. They have pointed to the Ellisons\u2019 ties to the administration, and to corporate lobbying from officials close to the White House on another merger and antitrust lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tPolitico was first to report on the DOJ approval of the Paramount-WBD merger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATED with Paramount statement: The Department of Justice has approved Paramount\u2019s pending $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,18205,12,217,3,4208,228983,21,19,22,20,25,24,10343],"class_list":["post-700576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-david-ellison","tag-donald-trump","tag-netflix","tag-news","tag-paramount","tag-paramount-wbd","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-warner-bros-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}