DOJ Downplays State AG Concessions in Paramount-WBD Deal — SkimNews
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- Stanley Woodward, associate attorney general, said in a Tuesday statement that "After a thorough review of th..." (quote truncated in source) the settlement produced no new antitrust-related commitments from Paramount-WBD
- State attorneys general had extracted concessions in settling the antitrust suit they brought to block the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger, which the DOJ official is now dismissing as substantively thin
- The Justice Department, through Woodward's statement, is signaling that the settlement's terms don't impose meaningful new competitive conditions on the merged entity
- Per Deadline and Variety headlines, the judge overseeing the case has scheduled a hearing and still has unresolved questions about the settlement terms, meaning the deal faces further judicial scrutiny beyond the DOJ's public posture
Why it matters: The DOJ's public minimization undercuts the state AGs' main selling point for the deal — that it extracted real antitrust concessions — while a judge has simultaneously flagged lingering questions about the terms, meaning the settlement's competitive value is being challenged from two directions at once.
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