Opposition coalition seeks briefing schedule to delay Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger consent decree
A group of antitrust and free-speech organizations filed a request with a federal judge to extend the briefing deadline, arguing that the proposed consent decree does not adequately address competition or First Amendment concerns.
A coalition of organizations opposing the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger has asked U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin to set a briefing schedule that would extend beyond the current deadline, allowing the group to file formal objections to a proposed consent decree. The coalition, which includes the Committee for the First Amendment, Free Press, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Future Film Coalition and the International Documentary Association, argues that the decree may extinguish potential state-level claims and fails to resolve key antitrust issues.
In a filing, the coalition said the decree’s commitment to release at least 30 films per year "appears to allow the merging parties to together make fewer films than they made separately last year" and raised concerns that separate carriage negotiations for cable channels could be "commercially unworkable." It also warned that an editorial oversight board could create First Amendment problems and that a force majeure clause permitting Paramount to suspend the decree under certain conditions might render the commitments "illusory."
The group proposed a briefing schedule extending to October 13, which would push past the March 1 deadline for Paramount to complete the merger or incur daily penalties of $7 million to Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount responded by characterizing the coalition’s request as "improper" and questioning the groups’ standing.
"Allowing briefing at all in response to these improper requests would prejudice Paramount by delaying the closing of a transaction that has been approved by every regulator and agency that has reviewed it (including the Plaintiff States, subject to the commitments described in the Consent Decree), forcing it to incur tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars of payments while adding nothing to the record. And their proposed submissions do not offer the Court information or perspective that the existing record does not already supply," the company's legal team wrote.