The UK government has greenlit Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, saying it has received assurances from the company about editorial independence and diversity of media.
The UK’s antitrust arm said Thursday that it decided not to further probe the deal, weeks after British culture minister Lisa Nandy said she was mulling intervening.
“We have cleared this deal as it does not raise competition concerns in the UK. The evidence shows that, after the merger, Paramount will continue to face sufficient competition in the various areas it operates in,” the Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement.
The UK’s culture department added that Paramount, which is led by CEO David Ellison, provided several assurances — including that it would maintain “distinct editorial identities of key services and the editorial independence of news.”
The media giant, which is home to Paramount Pictures, CBS and MTV, has offered to make those assurances legally binding, according to the department.
Last week, British actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cumming and Benedict Wong pushed the UK government to block the deal, citing concerns over the livelihoods of British film and TV crews, independent film financing and the consolidation of news publications.
The government’s decision to OK the deal follows the European Union’s decision last month to approve the merger only if Paramount exited a joint venture with Universal Pictures in the region, alongside other commitments.
Paramount initially expected the merger to go through by the end of September, but it has been embroiled suits from 12 US state attorneys general and the Writer’s Guild, which seek to block it. Paramount, which agreed to pause the merger, is currently set to go to trial next March.
The delay is poised to cost Paramount millions — if not billions — of dollars. Under the merger agreement, Paramount must pay Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders about $7 million for every day after Sept. 30 that the deal has not closed.
A March trial date means those “ticking fees” will balloon well over $1 billion before the judge rules.
Paramount said in a statement Thursday that the UK and EU’s decisions “further demonstrate the misguided and gerrymandered market definitions relied upon by the US state (attorneys general) in their antitrust complaint in California.”
“The combination of Paramount and WBD will enhance consumer choice” and create a media company “capable of competing with the tech companies that have come to dominate the industry,” it added.