Paramount settles with 12 US states. Can the Warner deal close before 1 October?

What happened

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reported on 21 September 2026 that Paramount Skydance and the twelve state attorneys general suing to stop its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery had agreed terms to settle the case.

Paramount Skydance has settled with twelve US states. The states had brought an antitrust case, a case under competition law, against its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The group is led by Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, and includes Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington. It sued in the federal court in Oakland on 13 July 2026.

The terms have not been filed yet. Reports on the agreement describe limits on how Paramount may run CNN, money penalties tied to David Ellison’s promise of thirty cinema releases a year, and running the two studios apart for a time. The Writers Guild of America case is folded into the same agreement.

A day earlier at least four attorneys general, among them New York and Connecticut, were still pushing for stronger conditions. Bonta had said in public that he would accept only structural remedies, meaning sales of parts of the combined business.

Everything else was already cleared. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved the sale on 23 April 2026.

The Justice Department reviewed the deal and did not sue, and the Federal Communications Commission approved the foreign investment on 17 September 2026.

From 1 October Paramount pays about $7m a day. It owes Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders about $650m a quarter for as long as the deal is open. What is left is paperwork: the settlement filed with the court, the states’ case dismissed, and the closing itself.

Sources: Variety, Al Jazeera, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, BBC, Reuters

The Pattern

We found ten deals like this since 2004. Each was a large US media or telecom merger where a competition case against it ended in a settlement. We counted the days from the settlement being filed in court to the day the buyer reported the deal complete. We checked whether that took ten days or less, the gap between this settlement and 1 October, when the daily payment starts. We picked the ten cases closest to this one, not the newest. One caution: the Justice Department settled all ten, so the same body set the terms every time.

Show the other 8 cases

2004 Cingular, AT&T Wirelessheld

The Justice Department, Connecticut and Texas filed their complaint and settlement on 25 October 2004, requiring spectrum sales in thirteen markets. Cingular completed the $41bn purchase of AT&T Wireless the next day. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2018 Disney, Twenty-First Century Foxnot held

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 27 June 2018, making Disney sell twenty-two regional sports networks. Foreign clearances and those sales took months, and the deal closed 266 days later, on 20 March 2019. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2016 Charter, Time Warner Cablenot held

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 25 April 2016. It set rules on how Charter dealt with online video and ordered no sale of any business. Charter closed the $78bn Time Warner Cable purchase 23 days later. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2013 Gannett, Beloheld

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 16 December 2013, requiring the sale of a St Louis television station. Gannett completed its purchase of Belo seven days later, on 23 December 2013. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2017 CenturyLink, Level 3not held

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 2 October 2017, requiring fibre sales in three cities and on thirty intercity routes. CenturyLink closed the $34bn purchase of Level 3 thirty days later, on 1 November 2017. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2014 Media General, LIN Medianot held

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 30 October 2014, requiring station sales in five markets. Media General completed its purchase of LIN Media fifty days later, on 19 December 2014. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2011 Comcast, NBCUniversalheld

The Justice Department and five states filed their settlement on 18 January 2011. It set conditions on how Comcast treated rivals and ordered no sale. Comcast completed the NBCUniversal deal ten days later. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

2018 Gray, Raycom Medianot held

The Justice Department filed its settlement on 14 December 2018, requiring station sales in nine markets. Gray Television completed its purchase of Raycom Media nineteen days later, on 2 January 2019. (Federal Register, Antitrust Division)

The Read

History says the deal will close, and the open question is when. In all ten cases the buyer completed the purchase after the settlement was filed. Four of the ten closed within ten days and eight within fifty. The two that took most of a year each had another problem still open. T-Mobile still faced a group of states in court, and Disney still had foreign regulators to satisfy and twenty-two sports networks to sell. Neither applies here.

The record is weaker than it looks. The Justice Department settled all ten cases, while here twelve elected attorneys general must each sign, and only four of the ten past cases had state attorneys general involved at all. Two of the ten, Live Nation and Gannett, were much smaller deals than this one.

The second market asks what the settlement contains. Eight of the same ten settlements ordered the buyer to sell something. The two that did not, Comcast with NBCUniversal and Charter with Time Warner Cable, set rules on how the buyer behaved instead. Every report of Monday’s agreement points that way: promises about CNN, a film count with money attached, and the two studios run apart for a while. If the document filed in Oakland orders a sale after all, Rob Bonta got the terms he said he would insist on.