Paramount Slams Netflix Over WBD Merger Lobbying
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- Makan Delrahim, Paramount's Chief Legal Officer, wrote to the DOJ Antitrust Division accusing Netflix of a "scorched-earth campaign" to "poison regulators and other stakeholders" against the WBD merger, alongside a broader call to arms for competitors including Amazon MGM, Disney, and Apple.
- Netflix rejected the characterization as "absurd," stating it "walked away from this deal months ago" and "remain focused on our own business, not theirs," while noting the WBD board switched to Paramount's offer — a move that netted Netflix a $2.8 billion breakup fee.
- Paramount is targeting at least $6 billion in cost savings from the deal and committed to theatrically releasing at least 30 feature films annually post-acquisition — 15 from each studio — with a guaranteed minimum 45-day theatrical window.
- Cost synergies will draw from "duplicative technology infrastructure," back-office functions, real estate optimization, and coordinated advertising spend, according to the letter, which insists these are "categories that do not touch production labor or union/guild positions."
- Regulatory scrutiny is mounting on multiple fronts: the DOJ is reviewing the merger, the UK opened a Phase I inquiry with an August 7 deadline, and the EU set an initial July 7 deadline that may be extended.
- Delrahim rejected comparisons to Disney's 2019 acquisition of Fox, calling Netflix's labor-impact narrative a "sky is falling" claim that "departs significantly from the ground-truth reality" of what actually happened post-merger.
- The letter notably "didn't detail specific actions by Netflix or others," according to Deadline — making the "scorched-earth" accusation an unsubstantiated characterization aimed at the regulator weighing the deal's competitive impact.
Why it matters: For Netflix, the $2.8 billion breakup fee is locked in regardless of the merger's fate, so the lobbying costs it nothing. For Paramount, the real contest is at the DOJ and parallel UK/EU reviews, where it must convince regulators that $6 billion in synergies won't hollow out production labor — a narrative the Teamsters' March white paper and Netflix's proxy push are actively contesting.
