{"id":27984,"date":"2026-08-05T01:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27984"},"modified":"2026-08-05T01:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:47:24","slug":"paramount-warner-bros-trial-to-start-in-march-2027-in-blow-to-david-ellison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27984","title":{"rendered":"Paramount-Warner Bros Trial to Start in March 2027 in Blow to David Ellison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe judge overseeing a lawsuit from a coalition of 12 states looking to block <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/paramount\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paramount_1\" data-tag=\"paramount\">Paramount<\/a>\u2018s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has scheduled a trial to start in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe decision marks a blow for the studio, which pushed to start the trial in November. Starting on Oct. 1, Paramount will have to pay a ticking fee of roughly $7 million per day to Warners shareholders until the deal closes. It\u2019ll likely be on the hook for upwards of $1.5 billion, accounting for the time it takes for the court to issue a ruling on the antitrust trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tLast week, Paramount urged the court to start the trial in November while the states proposed to set it for April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe trial will run 12 days, beginning on March 2 and ending on March 19. It will run from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm. The final pretrial conference will be held in February, with both sides completing briefing by the beginning of April. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tParamount\u2019s legal team is led by Beth Wilkinson, who successfully defended Microsoft\u2019s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard after the FTC sued. She joins a deep bench of lawyers for Paramount that includes Jeffrey Kessler and Paul Clement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tFacing lawsuits from the states, the Writers Guild of America and Paramount shareholders looking to stop the deal, Paramount\u2019s bid to acquire the legacy studio is in limbo. In a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/04\/opinion\/david-ellison-paramount-warner-deal.html\"><em>New York Times <\/em>op-ed<\/a>, Ellison stressed that the merger has been politicized, with the states primarily looking to stop him from owning CNN. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cI believe this fight is not really about market share \u2026 I believe a plainer worry sits beneath the briefs and the news releases: the news. The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner\u2019s CNN. There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions,\u201d Ellison wrote. \u201cUnfortunately, I can\u2019t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The judge overseeing a lawsuit from a coalition of 12 states looking to block Paramount\u2018s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery has scheduled a trial to start in March. The decision marks a blow for the studio, which pushed to start the trial in November. Starting on Oct. 1, Paramount will have to pay&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2266384721.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}