{"id":1522,"date":"2026-03-06T11:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/1522\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T11:47:12","slug":"california-ag-cites-antitrust-concerns-over-paramount-wbd-merger-exclu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/1522\/","title":{"rendered":"California AG Cites Antitrust Concerns Over Paramount-WBD Merger: EXCLU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: The $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery<\/a> has a long way to go and many \u201cregulatory hurdles\u201d to cross before it\u2019s truly a done deal, California Attorney General Rob Bonta<\/a> says.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhenever there\u2019s major corporate consolidation like this, there\u2019s a concern that we might see increased prices, lower wages, reduction in competition, limits in choice, lower quality, all those things,\u201d the Golden State\u2019s top lawman told Deadline on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation came after a coalition of Blue State AGs unveiled a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over \u201cillegal\u201d tariffs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s why there is antitrust law in the first place,\u201d Bonta added of the Paramount<\/a>-WBD pact, blasting the federal government for seemingly rubber-stamping the deal with Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s self-declared \u201cgood friends\u201d the Ellison family. The CA AG also noted there \u201cis interest from other states\u201d about a potential joint action over the Paramount-WBD merger,<\/a> much like the tariffs suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut don\u2019t listen to me, take a read:<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Today, David Ellison<\/a> said that the proposed Paramount-WBD merger would be good for consumers, good for content creators, and there is no reason it couldn\u2019t close ASAP. Sounds very different from your point of view last week, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n

\n\tROB BONTA: As I said before,<\/a> it\u2019s not a done deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe regulatory hurdles have not been crossed by the deal yet. We have an investigation that\u2019s open and ongoing, and we are looking at the deal. Whenever there\u2019s major corporate consolidation like this, there\u2019s a concern that we might see increased prices, lower wages, reduction in competition, limits in choice, lower quality, all those things. That\u2019s why there is antitrust law in the first place. That\u2019s why there\u2019s regulators like my office that care and will look and be objective and fair, thorough and comprehensive in our review and come to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe haven\u2019t come to a conclusion yet. We might agree with some of what Mr. Ellison is saying. We might disagree with some or all of what he\u2019s saying. We might come where somewhere in between. We\u2019re not, we haven\u2019t prejudged this.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Where is that at as of today?<\/p>\n

\n\tBONTA: We\u2019re going through the process and looking. You know, of course, he has an outcome that he wants so and he has a view that he shares. That\u2019s why there\u2019s independent regulatory review, and we are that regulator, and as are other states that are interested in this deal and its impacts.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, it seems like the federal government has withdrawn from its traditional role here, and not necessarily doing a rigorous and robust antitrust review of the proposed deal. But whatever they do, the federal government and maybe they will do it, but we will do our own independent review here in California. So we\u2019re looking closely. Again, it\u2019s not a done deal, and we haven\u2019t arrived at any conclusions yet. We are in the middle of our ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Attorney General, last week you said that you were talking to other attorneys general. Are you considering something like what we\u2019re seeing today around the response to President Trump\u2019s tariff policy?<\/p>\n

\n\tBONTA: There is interest from other states in the Paramount-Warner Bros proposed deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going to end up. Interest doesn\u2019t mean a final outcome or conclusion, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if there were a possibility of multiple states working together, it could be just us, or we all could be satisfied, after we do our due diligence, that the deal should go through as is.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo. again, we haven\u2019t prejudged it, but outside of California, there are other states that are interested in the deal as well.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tAlong with the blue states\u2019 tariff suit, Attorney General Bonta\u2019s remarks Thursday came just hours after Paramount CEO Ellison appeared on CNBC to pitch the WBD deal as a win-win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur deal is pro-competitive and good for the creator and good for creators,\u201d Ellison told Squawk on the Street\u2019s Julia Boorstin and David Faber in the dawn hours. \u201cBasically, the creative ecosystem now has more places to sell and more scaled buyers and consumers now have more choices,\u201d the exec insisted.<\/p>\n

\n\tTellingly, Boorstin and Faber tried to get Ellison to address the AG\u2019s assertion this was \u201cnot a done deal,\u201d but the CEO weaved away from giving them direct answer.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat Ellison did say was: \u201cWe\u2019ve met with all the Democratic state AGs. We\u2019ve met with the Republican AGs. And we\u2019re going to continue to basically collaborate obviously with regulators throughout this process. In terms of basically, you know, whether or not they can slow us down, as I said, we could technically close tomorrow, but also at the end of the day, we\u2019re all governed by the law. And the reality of this is there is nothing in this transaction that trips anything that would create cause for concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Bonta clearly disagrees on whether there is anything in the Paramount-WBD melding that could create concern, he did confirm to Deadline that he has in fact met with Ellison.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest? TBD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: The $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery has a long way to go and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1700,1202,38,830,8,9,296,1701,1702,7,1203],"class_list":{"0":"post-1522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-cnbc","9":"tag-david-ellison","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-electionline","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-paramount","15":"tag-qa","16":"tag-rob-bonta","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116182072863218888","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}