UPDATE, September 30: Now it can. Paramount settled both lawsuits, and the judge has approved the states’ settlement, the last barrier to closing.
UPDATE, September 11: Paramount and California will hold a two-day settlement meeting at the end of October.
Paramount Skydance told a federal court Tuesday that its $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery is done on its end.
Every closing condition in the merger agreement has been satisfied, the company says, and regulators in 69 jurisdictions have cleared the deal, including the Department of Justice earlier this summer.
“These two lawsuits are the only remaining barrier to closing this transaction,” Paramount said in a press release, pointing at the antitrust case brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, eleven other states, and the Writers Guild of America.
The filing goes further: without the court order pausing the deal, Paramount says it would close the merger by September 30, 2026.
Tuesday’s brief answers the states’ objections and is the last written round before the September 24 hearing on Paramount’s $1.88 billion bond demand, the money it wants the states and the WGA to set aside to cover the cost of the delay if their lawsuits fail.
“They Must Accept The Financial Consequences”
“If plaintiffs insist that this transaction is paused during the pendency of their lawsuit, they must accept the financial consequences if their challenge ultimately fails,” a Paramount spokesperson said.
Paramount is not trying to get out of the pause. It signed an agreement not to close the deal until June 1, 2027, or until the lawsuits end, whichever comes first, and says it is honoring that.
“We are not asking the district court to lift the no-close order, but to require enforcement of the bond that protects our financial interests while the litigation remains pending,” the spokesperson said.
Its argument is that the same antitrust law the states are suing under also protects a company that gets wrongly blocked, and the bond is the money set aside for that.
“Paramount provided unrebutted evidence that, but-for the Order, it may suffer $1.88 billion in damages,” the filing states, adding that the states “never dispute that evidence.”
Paramount also took a shot at how the case started, saying the states sued “at the eleventh hour, after dragging their investigations out for many months without providing feedback on any areas of competitive concern.”
And it turned the writers’ union’s own words around, noting the WGA itself previously argued that the law makes a bond mandatory and requires a “very substantial bond” when an injunction threatens major financial harm.
The States Counter With A $10,000 Bond
The states and the WGA answered the demand on September 1, telling the court Paramount signed the pause agreement itself and cannot now claim the judge got it wrong.
“Nor can Paramount show why the public or a non-profit labor union should underwrite its acquisition of Warner Bros.,” they wrote, per Deadline.
And if the judge orders a bond anyway, they asked for it to be set at $10,000.
Bonta’s office kept its response to Tuesday’s filing short: “We believe Paramount’s motion has no merit and look forward to presenting our case in court at the September 24th hearing.”
The calendar tightens from here. Paramount and Warner Bros. file their formal answer to the lawsuits September 11, going through the accusations line by line.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín hears the bond fight September 24. The $7 million-a-day fee to Warner Bros. shareholders starts October 1, reportedly the same date Paramount set for settlement talks to begin, with the studio said to be floating a move out of California if they don’t.
The trial is set for March 2027, and until the deal closes, every long-term Warner Bros. decision — DC Studios included — still waits on David Ellison.
On September 24, the judge decides who carries the cost of the wait.
