State Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday that no settlement talks are currently scheduled with Paramount over a multistate antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the company\u2019s proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.<\/p>\n
Bonta canceled a meeting with Paramount representatives that had been scheduled for Monday after details of confidential settlement discussions were leaked to the media, an action he called \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they are willing to clean things up \u2026 and engage in a way that is sincere and in good faith, we will be where we always will be with any party in any case that we\u2019re involved in, which is happy to meet,\u201d Bonta said during a news conference Tuesday in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Bonta said Monday that he believed Paramount was \u201cplaying games,\u201d accusing the company of leaking and misrepresenting details of settlement discussions held last week.<\/p>\n
Paramount has denied being the source of the leaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe share AG Bonta\u2019s concerns about the public discussions and misreporting that has surrounded this deal,\u201d according to the company. \u201cAs we have assured the Attorney General\u2019s office, Paramount has not been the source of the leaks of any of our confidential discussions with the AG\u2019s office. We remain hopeful and stand ready to continue good faith discussions to resolve the attorneys general suit and move forward with our plans for increased competition and increased output to the benefit of the talent and entertainment workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonta has called the proposed merger illegal and said it would result in higher prices, lower content quality and fewer movies and television shows.<\/p>\n
Paramount CEO David Ellison said in an Aug. 14 statement that the merger \u201cwill create a stronger competitor with greater capacity to invest in premium content, support creative talent and workers, and deliver more high-quality entertainment to audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Justice completed its review of the proposed transaction June 12 without seeking to block it, but Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in July seeking to stop the deal.<\/p>\n
Under an agreement reached in the case, Paramount and Warner Bros. cannot complete the transaction until June 1, 2027, or until after a court decision is made on the states\u2019 claims, whichever occurs first. A trial is scheduled for March 2027.<\/p>\n
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for governor, are among Bonta\u2019s fellow Democrats who have called for the parties to negotiate a resolution.<\/p>\n
City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who is challenging Bass in the Nov. 3 mayoral election, has opposed a settlement that would allow the transaction to proceed under its current terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a bad deal for entertainment workers and a bad deal for Los Angeles,\u201d Raman said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I support Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2019s antitrust lawsuit and stand with the workers fighting this merger.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Writers Guild of America criticized Bass for calling for a settlement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are disappointed that Mayor Bass has chosen to join Paramount\u2019s pressure campaign on public enforcers, to push through a merger that is being rightfully challenged as illegal and will lead to job losses in the entertainment industry,\u201d the WGA said in a statement to Deadline Hollywood. \u201cHer statement comes on the heels of a county report estimating thousands of jobs will be lost if the merger proceeds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Attorney General Rob Bonta said Tuesday that no settlement talks are currently scheduled with Paramount over a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1023803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[37717,1582,276,2961,224,5337,15329,8719,29237,10495,33078],"class_list":["post-1023802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bonta","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-paramount","tag-says","tag-scheduled","tag-settlement","tag-talks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117158031190937145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1023803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}