Judge Dismisses Lawsuit From Paramount Streaming Subscribers Seeking to Block Warner Bros. Merger
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit from a group of consumers looking to challenge the $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros....
Key points
- A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit from a group of consumers looking to challenge the $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
- Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín wrote that the plaintiffs — three current Paramount+ subscribers and two prospective subscribers — presented a lack of standing in their suit.
- She later added, “Plaintiffs’ standing theory amounts to little more than the assertion that they are consumers who watch television and go to the movies, and therefore a merger between Entertainment companies would injure them.” Popular on Variety Judge Martínez-Olguín will also preside over the antitrust cases from a group of 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, which both claim the Paramount-Warner Bros.
- Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison recently published an op-ed in The New York Times, in which he wrote that the reason the state AGs want the merger blocked is not because of consolidation, but because he will control CNN if he’s allowed to scoop up Warner Bros.
What happened
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit from a group of consumers looking to challenge the $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín wrote that the plaintiffs — three current Paramount+ subscribers and two prospective subscribers — presented a lack of standing in their suit. She later added, “Plaintiffs’ standing theory amounts to little more than the assertion that they are consumers who watch television and go to the movies, and therefore a merger between Entertainment companies would injure them.” Popular on Variety Judge Martínez-Olguín will also preside over the antitrust cases from a group of 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America, which both claim the Paramount-Warner Bros. Paramount-Skydance CEO David Ellison recently published an op-ed in The New York Times, in which he wrote that the reason the state AGs want the merger blocked is not because of consolidation, but because he will control CNN if he’s allowed to scoop up Warner Bros. “I believe this fight is not really about market share,” Ellison wrote. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”
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