Paramount slams antitrust lawsuit, seeks dismissal
Paramount slams antitrust lawsuit, seeks dismissal
The company is looking to end a lawsuit brought by a group of streaming customers over its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount Skydance doesn’t feel the need to have its day in court. The company is currently facing a lawsuit over its intended merger with Warner Bros. Discovery for alleged antitrust violations. Now, Paramount is pushing back in court filings, asking to have the case dismissed with prejudice over what it calls an attempt to “politicize antitrust law.”
Key Details:
- Can we go?: Paramount is asking to have the lawsuit against its merger with WBD dismissed.
- Less isn’t more: Plaintiffs allege that the Paramount/WBD merger would lead to less competition and higher prices.
- Hard line: Paramount says its merger with WBD promotes competition instead of lessening it.
A group of streaming and pay-TV customers has filed a class-action lawsuit against Paramount, trying to halt its merger with WBD by alleging that the deal will materially harm competition, diminish the diversity of viewpoints from editorial sources, and lead to higher streaming prices for consumers.
Paramount pushed back this week, filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. The motion denies the lawsuit’s allegations point by point and says that the plaintiffs do not have standing to bring legal action in the first place.
“Their allegations of injury consist almost entirely of speculative, barebones assertions with no factual support,” Paramount’s lawyers wrote. “Their sole allegation of purported concrete injury (a single price increase on Paramount’s streaming service, Paramount+) lacks factual allegations suggesting any causal connection between this price increase and the Skydance-Paramount merger.”
Paramount also says that being deprived of a diversity of viewpoints in political news media is not the type of harm that can support an antitrust claim. In a separate filing, Paramount also argued that the merger was the most effective way to compete against Disney+ and Netflix, and that the merger actually helps competition instead of harming it.
“Antitrust law is intended to promote competition, and this merger does exactly that,” its attorneys said.
The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery has touched off a political firestorm, intensified by Paramount CEO David Ellison’s close relationship with President Trump. The Department of Justice appears poised to sign off on the deal, but other regulatory hurdles still exist.
The legal ball is now in the plaintiffs’ court, and their representation is sure to fire back with a filing every bit as fiery as Paramount’s. Keep checking back with The Streamable for the latest developments in the case.
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