Nevada joins lawsuit challenging Paramount-Warner Bros. merger

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, as part of a coalition of a dozen states.

Ford claims the $110 billion deal that would merge two of the nation’s largest media companies would stifle competition in the movie industry and harm consumers.

“This merger threatens to reduce choices, drive up costs and diminish the variety of movies and television programming available to families,” Ford stated in a Monday news release. “Nevadans deserve a marketplace where companies are incentivized to compete to deliver diverse entertainment, competitive prices and more innovation.”

A representative for Paramount told The Associated Press the company planned to “vigorously defend” the merger and maintained it would create a “stronger competitor against dominant streaming and technology platforms who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition and jobs in the entertainment industry.”

According to the news release, Paramount and Warner Bros. would control nearly a third of cable programming and nearly a third of the U.S. motion picture industry if combined.

The Paramount and Warner Bros. transaction received a stamp of approval from shareholders in April after months of a public bidding war with Netflix.

Paramount has previously said that it aims to close the deal sometime in the third quarter of this year. Paramount pledged to give shareholders some compensation if the process isn’t complete by Sept. 30.

The lawsuit follows the Department of Justice’s June decision to close its investigation into the deal. The DOJ concluded that the deal would not harm competition or consumers, but critics have called into question the decision, citing President Donald Trump’s close relationship with Paramount CEO David Ellison and his family.

“Something happened and perhaps that something had to do with a mega-billionaire named Ellison,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters on Monday. “We are seeing more and more instances where the Trump DOJ is just rolling over for corporate consolidation,” she added.

Ford, alongside the broader coalition, has requested that the two companies halt the merger until the case concludes. If they do not agree to do so, the coalition will file a temporary restraining order, according to the news release.

Thousands of actors, directors, writers and other industry professionals have voiced staunch opposition to the deal.

In a statement, the Writers Guild of America commended the attorneys general for bringing the lawsuit, warning that the merger would result in “fewer jobs, lower wages for entertainment workers, less variety of programming, and higher prices for consumers.”