Paramount Suit Settlement Timeline: Deal Came Together After Stalemate
Paramount‘s settlement with the 12 Democratic state attorneys general appeared to be a Yom Kippur affair, with the final signoff coming after sundown on Sunday.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta was cagey when asked about the exact timeline for the agreement following his Monday morning press conference announcing the deal but when he was cheekily asked by a reporter whether he had brushed his teeth yet by the time all was said and done, he responded with, “I can affirmatively say yes.”
“You get to a place in some of these negotiations where you get to 90% maybe 95%, maybe even 99%, and then the last part is often the hardest part,” Bonta added. “Something comes up, something unexpected; you make a lot of progress, then it goes slow, there’s a hiccup — and that was not proven wrong here either.”
RELATED: Read The Proposed Consent Decree To Settle The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger
When pressed further on the timeline, Bonta confirmed what had been rumored.
“We have made a lot of progress over the last week,” he said. “I don’t have percentages for you, but there were components that were not locked in that needed to get locked in till the very end.”
RELATED: Paramount-WBD Settlement Sets Up Editorial Independence Board For CNN And CBS News
After months of sabre-rattling that was on its way to the Supreme Court, negotiations between the two sides picked up last week and carried on over the weekend after, as one person with knowledge of the situation told Deadline, the process got “unstuck.”
Bonta acknowledged California Gov. Gavin Newson in his opening remarks about the settlement but would not comment how involved he was in the final stretch. Newsom stayed closed to the situation in the last week, and many think that he applied pressure on the California AG to pursue a settlement.
Reports emerged over the two months that Newsom would like to see a settlement deal struck between the AGs and defendants Paramount and Warner Bros rather than the whole affair heading to trial. He didn’t take an official position until August, when he expressed concerns but ultimately pushed for both sides to reach a deal outside of court.
Newsom got heat from Mark Ruffalo, a staunch critic of the merger, who blamed him specifically for delivering “a huge win to Trump and his billionaire cronies.”
At the presser Monday, Bonta assured that this deal was a win, but he conceded that the state leaders still ultimately believe the merger should not happen.
Ellison indicated separately on Monday that the deal will likely be finalized in the next two weeks.
