Posted in: Movies, Netflix, Paramount+, TV | Tagged: netflix, paramount

Paramount Blames Netflix for Warner Bros Woes; "Absurd": Netflix

Paramount’s chief legal officer thinks he knows who's to blame for the company's recent woes with the pending Warner Bros deal: Netflix.

David Ellison's Paramount Skydance deal to take over David Zaslav's Warner Bros Discovery is running into some hurdles as it inches closer to that "ticking fee" deadline, where they have to start paying WBD shareholders for the deal not getting done. Along with concerns from the European Union regarding a monopoly on kids' programming, we also learned that a number of U.S. states are looking to file a lawsuit to block the deal. Earlier today, we learned that Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had formally opened a probe into the $110 billion deal. The first phase will wrap up on August 7th, at which point the CMA will announce if a second investigation is warranted, which could take months. And then there's the matter of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which urged the Justice Department back in March to block the deal unless "substantial and enforceable safeguards" were in place to keep jobs secure and promote increased U.S. production. When it comes to that last example, Paramount's chief legal officer Makan Delrahim is pointing a finger directly at… Netflix.

"Netflix's panic-level response and scorched-earth campaign to try and poison regulators and other stakeholders against the Transaction shows just how seriously Netflix takes Paramount as a scaled competitor," Delrahim wrote in a June 5th letter to lawyers in the DOJ's Antitrust Division. Paramount claims that Netflix has been comparing the Paramount/Warner Bros deal with the 2019 merger between Disney and 21st Century Fox, and pushing how mergers such as these lead to a reduction in production and competition – and layoffs. "We understand that as part of its broader proxy war against the Transaction, Netflix has tried to persuade the Teamsters and other stakeholders that Disney's acquisition of Fox had a negative impact on content production and labor opportunities. Frankly, Netflix's 'sky is falling' narrative departs significantly from the ground-truth reality of what actually happened."

For its part, Netflix had this to say via an official statement: "These claims from Paramount Skydance are absurd. We walked away from this deal months ago and remain focused on our own business, not theirs. Ultimately, it's up to the regulators to approve this deal and determine if it is in the best interest of the industry and all concerned."

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