Plaintiffs Make Last Ditch Effort To Halt Paramount-WBD Merger

A group of Paramount subscribers and viewers have petitioned the Supreme Court to put at least a temporary halt to the merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a transaction that is scheduled to close on Tuesday.

In a filing on Monday, the petitioners — Pamela Faust, Len Marazzo, Lisa McCarthy, Deborah Rubinsohn and Gary Talewsky — argue that the merger is still anticompetitive, even with the conditions put in place by the settlement of the state attorneys general lawsuit last month.

“The States’ settlement itself requires that the combined company not sell or close the Paramount or Warner Bros. lots during the commitment period, provides reapplication rights to employees displaced by the transaction, and creates an editorial-independence board. Those safeguards show the magnitude of the integration that closing will unleash, but they do not preserve competition between Paramount and Warner Bros.”

The petition is a longshot, given that the plaintiffs’ efforts to stop the merger has been rejected by the district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The plaintiffs, represented by Joseph M. Alioto, sought a temporary restraining order to block the merger. But U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, in a ruling last week, cited the plaintiffs’ “repeated failures to advance any evidence in support of their motions for preliminary relief in this case to date.” She also cited an earlier decision in which she granted Paramount’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, in which she wrote that she had “serious concerns” over the plaintiffs’ standing.

A federal appellate court denied their petition on Friday.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs pointed to the record of transaction materials, CEO statements and consumer verifications.

Their brief states, “The requested order is narrow: preserve separate ownership and prohibit integration pending disposition of the petition or further order. It does not decide final antitrust liability. It preserves the Court’s ability to decide the legal questions before the October 6 closing changes the competitive structure the Clayton Act is designed to protect.”

The plaintiffs describe themselves as Paramount subscribers, viewers and cable customers. Their lawsuit was originally filed last spring, before the group of state attorneys general sued to block the deal. The settlement includes a consent decree that spells out a 30+ theatrical releases per year schedule, as well as separate negotiations for the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery cable channels.