The Attorney-General of California, Rob Bonta, stated that he had filed a lawsuit against Paramount Skydance for the acquisition of WBD by the Warner Brothers, with a focus not on competition in the media, but on whether the M & As would increase the concentration of traditional media and film distribution markets.
Litigation locks three types of business.
Bounta joined 11 other state attorneys general this week to prosecute the transaction and sought a preliminary injunction from the court to suspend the purchase while the case was under consideration.
He claims that the case mainly examined three types of market: large-scale film screenings, large-scale high-budget commercial distributions, and the authorization of cable channels. The prosecution considers that the merger may have a more bargaining power over cinemas and paid television distributors.
- A wide-scale movie release.
- High-budget commercial major issue
- Cable channel authorized business.
Fluent media is not at the heart of the case.
According to Paramount, the acquisition of WBD helped it compete with technological platforms such as Netflix and Amazon, and accelerated the transition to new media models. However, Bonta stated that this statement was irrelevant in the present case.
He noted that the tradable media market had not been included in the core determination of the current antimonopoly suit, and therefore platforms such as Netflix were not directly targeted in the case. According to him, focusing on the flow of media would only deviate from the market structure issue discussed in the present case.
The scale of the deal is still worrying.
If the transaction is completed, the merged company will control the flow of media assets such as HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, and will also have the resources of the channels TNT, HGTV, Cody Central, and integrate the Paramount Film Industry and two large Warner Brothers.
According to Bunta, cinemas may in the future be required to accept higher costs or more stringent provisions and the associated costs may eventually be passed to consumers. The report also mentioned that the United States Department of Justice had previously approved the deal, but that some actors, directors and practitioners were still openly opposed.
The legal profession is concerned with the caliber.
In response to Business Insider, a Los Angeles lawyer, Corey Martin stated that the prosecution ' s exclusion of streaming media operations from market concentration analysis was a relatively new approach. Given that the flow of media is an important reason for the promotion of transactions, this recognition may be the focus of the case.