Sixty six jurisdictions cleared the Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. A US court has it frozen

Paramount Skydance Corporation announced on 6 August 2026 that the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority had cleared its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and that with that clearance bodies and governments representing 66 jurisdictions had now either cleared the transaction or chosen not to challenge it. Its list named the United States, the European Commission on 22 July 2026, the COMESA Competition Commission, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority, and authorities in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Kuwait, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea and Ukraine, plus foreign direct investment clearances in Australia, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, France, Italy, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia and Spain. Mexico approved on 14 August 2026, and chief executive David Ellison then put the running total at nearly 70 jurisdictions.

None of that lets the deal close. It is stopped in a United States federal court.

The American competition clearance came first and came clean. NPR reported on 13 June 2026 that the Department of Justice signed off on 12 June after an eight month review and imposed no conditions at all, no divestitures and no concessions, on the reasoning that streaming competition from Netflix, Apple and Amazon left the combination no threat to consumers. Reported deal values cluster around 110 to 111 billion United States dollars; the equity figure most commonly cited is 110.9 billion dollars at 31 dollars a share, and the sale was approved by Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders on 23 April 2026.

On 13 July 2026, twelve state attorneys general sued to block it under the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California: California, which is leading, together with Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington. The Writers Guild of America filed its own suit in the same court on 14 July, arguing the merged company would have the incentive and the ability to lower costs by suppressing writers' wages and reducing output. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, to whom the case was reassigned on 15 July, granted a 14 day temporary restraining order on 20 July and extended it on 23 July. Forbes reported on 25 July that she had found the combined companies would hold about 27 per cent of the worldwide theatrical film market, and quoted her saying the court is persuaded that it can presume the proposed merger is likely to violate antitrust laws.

Paramount then agreed to hold off. In exchange, the Writers Guild withdrew its request for a preliminary injunction, and on 24 July the parties extended the outside closing date to 1 June 2027. They fought over timing: Paramount asked for a November 2026 trial and the state attorneys general asked for April 2027. The court set trial for 2 to 19 March 2027. California attorney general Rob Bonta has framed the case as ordinary antitrust enforcement, saying it is about protecting the vibrancy of an industry, the pockets of consumers, and the quality of films and television programs.

The financing is where the ownership questions sit. About 24 billion dollars of the 110.9 billion dollar equity acquisition is reported to come from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are described as holding 38.5 per cent of the combined company on closing through shares without votes, with each individual fund kept under a 25 per cent stake. The same public record puts total foreign ownership at 49.5 per cent against 50.5 per cent held by American investors. The 38.5 per cent and 49.5 per cent figures are measuring different things, sovereign funds in one case and all foreign holders in the other, and they should not be used interchangeably. Engadget reported on 12 June 2026 that Larry Ellison, father of the chief executive, is reported to be providing 45.7 billion dollars of equity himself.

Opposition inside the industry has been loud and public. The ABC reported that more than 1,400 Hollywood actors, directors and filmmakers signed an open letter in April warning of fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs and less choice for audiences. Engadget later put the signatory count at more than 5,500 and named Glenn Close, Jane Fonda, Joaquin Phoenix and Kevin Bacon among them. Senator Elizabeth Warren attacked the Justice Department's approval in political terms, calling it terrible news for every American who does not want billionaires aligned with the president to control what they watch and how much they pay.

So the accurate summary is not that regulators waved through the largest media merger yet attempted. Competition authorities almost everywhere looked and did not object, including the American federal antitrust enforcer without conditions. A sub federal challenge from state law officers, joined by a union, produced the only order that has actually stopped anything.

What is not yet known is whether the March 2027 trial happens on schedule, and whether the Federal Communications Commission's separate review, which NPR noted was still outstanding when the Justice Department cleared the deal, imposes conditions the antitrust regulators did not. The deal has an outside closing date of 1 June 2027 and a trial that ends in mid March. There is not much slack in that.