{"id":1025172,"date":"2026-08-26T12:05:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1025172\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:05:31","slug":"paramount-antitrust-suit-should-go-to-supreme-court-iowa-ag-insists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1025172\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Antitrust Suit Should Go To Supreme Court, Iowa AG Insists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWith friends like Iowa Attorney General \u00a0Brenna Bird, does Paramount<\/a> and David Ellison<\/a> really need enemies? <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an op-ed penned for the conservative Daily Wire Tuesday, the Hawkeye State ally of Donald Trump<\/a> is threatening to take California to the Supreme Court<\/a>. Declaring that \u201cCalifornia is once again trying to be the country\u2019s regulator,\u201d Bird wants to stop the antitrust<\/a> lawsuit from the Golden State, New York and 10 other states against Paramount\u2019s $111 billion purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust like California should keep its hands off America\u2019s bacon, California needs to understand that it doesn\u2019t get to decide what Americans can choose to watch or stream,\u201d the reelection seeking Bird states of the state and its AG Rob Bonta<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf California believes a transaction that 68 regulators approved is nevertheless illegal, it is free to make that argument,\u201d she notes, lamenting the $7 million a day ticking fee and more Paramount will have to start paying WBD shareholders starting October 1. \u201cBut it should make it in the one court with the authority to bind all of us, and it should make it now, before the bill for the delay comes due,\u201d Bird claps, leaving out any reference to the Empire State\u2019s Letitia James<\/a>\u00a0and other AG.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, for all her rallying to the ParaBros cause, as well as some variations on what Bonta and gang are actually alleging in the March 2, 2027 trial starting case before a federal judge in Oakland, Bird doesn\u2019t seem to have actually filed anything with SCOTUS<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt also seems hard to see how even if Iowa did take California to the conservative majority Supreme Court, how they could get a hearing before next spring or even October, with the John Roberts-led high court not back in session until October 5. <\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, let\u2019s sidestep Bird getting a perch on SCOTUS\u2019 fast tracked interim relief docket (AKA the emergency docket or shadow docket) for a second, and look at a possible route under the provisions of Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. Even if the case fell within the \u201coriginal jurisdiction\u201d criteria and passed muster with the Justices, any ruling would likely still be drawn out \u2014 likely beyond the March 2027 trial already on the calendar. In the rare case SCOTUS picks up such a state to state battle, it would generally appoint a \u201cspecial master\u2019 to review the matter before getting directly on it. <\/p>\n

\n\tAll of which, like Paramount CEO Ellison accused Bonta in an August 4 NYT op-ed<\/a>, makes Bird\u2019s flag planter reek of politics. <\/p>\n

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

\n\tBird, who filed a brief in 2024 support of the former Apprentice host\u2019s ultimately successful bid to gain significant immunity from prosecution for acts taken while POTUS, sidesteps most of the meat of the actual antitrust suit the 12 states and the WGA are pursuing. A suit that Bonta, in an August 10 guest column for Deadline<\/a>, paints as \u201ca straight up antitrust enforcement case. One that is very cut and dry.\u201d Instead, Bird, while giving the DOJ the benefit of the doubt, moves to blast Bonta and colleagues as \u201cmore hostile to this pro-competition merger than Europe and China.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u2018To Save American Movies, I\u2019m Taking California To The Supreme\u00a0Court\u2019 entitled piece in the Ben Shapiro-founded outlet insists a ParaBros combo is good for high streaming subscription paying Iowans, competition and the movie and TV businesses. \u201cThe merger could create a company to compete: an estimated $6 billion in savings to reinvest, and a public commitment to release at least 30 movies in theaters every year. More movies mean more entertainment \u2014 and more competition means lower prices,\u201d Bird says. <\/p>\n

\n\tThere is no mention by Bird of the $80 billion debt load a ParaBros will carry, the ongoing blame game settlement talks (or lack thereof) skirmish<\/a>, nor the $1.88 billion bond Paramount desires to offset the \u201cextraordinary losses\u201d the court challenge poses. <\/p>\n

\n\tBird also makes no mention of possible layoffs or other cuts from a Paramount and WBD melding. Cuts that every such M&A deal has seen. Cuts that the likes of the WGA SAG-AFTRA and theTeamsters warn of. Cut that reports in both late June <\/a>and last week to the LA County Board of Supervisors warned could see thousands pink slipped,<\/a> and cost the region billions in wage and hundreds of millions in tax revenue. <\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Rob Bonta and David Ellison<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tTouting a Hollywood that few who live here may recognize, the Iowa AG chooses echoes the findings of earlier this year from Trump\u2019s DOJ approving the merger. To that, right now, she says \u201cmore movies are being made, and more workers are being hired.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile seemingly concurrently stressing that a joint \u201cParamount+ and HBO Max together are smaller than Netflix, smaller than Disney and smaller than Amazon,\u201d Bird also throws out there that \u201ca successful Paramount-Warner Bros. merger would change that.\u201d Later in the op-ed, the long time pol says: \u201cThat is the opposite of a monopoly problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSinging the tunes of the growing MAGA<\/a> chorus that seeks to turn Bonta into the new Nancy Pelosi punching bag, Bird asserts \u201cCalifornia is just dreaming up something radical\u201d to go to war with Trump and his admitted \u201cgood friends\u201d David Ellison and his Oracle founding father Larry Ellison<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCalifornia argues that the Department of Justice<\/a> waved this through as a political favor to Paramount\u2019s owners,\u201d Bird wrote Tuesday in a smudging of what is actually in the July 13 filing <\/a>by the colalition of blue states. Then someone should explain how the Department managed to get approval in China, Europe, Canada, and the other 60-plus jurisdictions. When regulators in 68 jurisdictions with different laws, different politics, and no stake whatsoever in American elections all reach the same conclusion, the outlier is not the consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAgain, no filing seems to have occurred today so far at the Supreme Court from Iowa or Bird. Rob Bonta and Brenna Bird\u2019s office do share the fact that neither of them responded to Deadline\u2019s request for comment on the Iowa AG\u2019s threat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With friends like Iowa Attorney General \u00a0Brenna Bird, does Paramount and David Ellison really need enemies? In an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":869988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[3227,32129,9611,69,36555,171,37793,92329,24980,7042,15329,269047,13211,146187,278,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1025172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-antitrust","tag-david-ellison","tag-department-of-justice","tag-donald-trump","tag-electionline","tag-entertainment","tag-l-a-county-board-of-supervisors","tag-larry-ellison","tag-letitia-james","tag-maga","tag-paramount","tag-paramount-wbd","tag-rob-bonta","tag-scotus","tag-supreme-court","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117161726020628442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025172","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=1025172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}