Judge Temporarily Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal

A federal judge on Monday temporarily stopped Paramount from completing its $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery while she considers a lawsuit that argues the deal violates antitrust laws, a disruption to one of the biggest media deals in history.

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a temporary restraining order that was requested by 12 states that have sued to block the deal.

The pause will last only 14 days. But in her order, Judge Martínez-Olguín raised the prospect of a much longer delay. She said she would weigh, at a hearing in early August, whether to grant an injunction, which could halt the deal from closing for months.

The lawsuit is one of the final hurdles in Paramount’s persistent push to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and create a Hollywood giant. The merger would unite under one roof two major movie studios, the streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, and networks including CBS and CNN. David Ellison, the tech scion who runs Paramount, has mounted a monthslong campaign to acquire Warner Bros., ultimately outbidding Netflix after proposing a handful of escalating offers.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/business/media/paramount-warner-bros-deal.html