DOJ Clears Paramount-WBD Merger Despite Staff Concerns

Discovery merger, surprising career staffers who had scrutinized the deal for eight months and were leaning towards recommending a lawsuit on antitrust grounds. These staff investigators believed combining two movie studios would violate antitrust law and be anti-competitive.

However, senior DOJ officials ultimately signed off on the deal, determining it was "not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers." Sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Paramount CEO David Ellison persuasively addressed many staff questions during a two-hour interview last month. These questions included how the combined company would meet a commitment to release 30 films in theaters annually given its increased debt load.

Senior leaders ultimately believed the debt was not a reason to challenge the merger, and no one on the investigative team spoke up to leadership voicing support for filing a lawsuit, according to the Journal. Upon request for comment, DOJ representatives directed TheWrap to Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr.'s tweet, where he expressed incredulity at the WSJ reporting, stating no career lawyers reached out to leadership with such concerns.