Paramount Settles Antitrust Lawsuit Challenging Merger With Warner Bros

Paramount Skydance on Sept. 21 settled with California and 11 other states that tried to block its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, clearing a path for what is expected to be ​one of the largest media mergers ever.

The deal allows the companies to move toward closing the transaction instead of fighting the states’ antitrust lawsuit.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a press conference that the agreement to settle will bring more film production to the United States—at least $300 million more each year—as well as a deal to increase annual film releases after closing.

The lawsuit was filed in July.

Democratic attorneys general joined the legal action from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington state.

The states alleged that the deal violated the Clayton Antitrust Act, a 100-year-old federal law that forbids mergers that tend to create a monopoly. The combined company would control nearly one-third of theatrical motion pictures and one-third of cable programming, including 50 of the most popular cable channels, Bonta said in July.

This merger would give the company more than 30 percent of anticipated blockbuster movies, and four distributors would control more than 90 percent of that submarket of possible top-grossing films, Bonta also previously said.

Jill McLaughlin and Reuters contributed to this report.

This is a developing story and will be updated.