The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday urged a federal judge to require a coalition of 12 states and the Writers Guild of America to post a bond covering potential damages from their lawsuit seeking to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Paramount has asked U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín to order the plaintiffs to post a nearly $1.9 billion bond—specifically $1.88 billion—pending the outcome of the antitrust cases scheduled for trial in March 2027. The Justice Department did not endorse that exact figure but argued that federal law requires the states and the union to post a “proper bond” because they are acting as private parties rather than federal enforcers.
The filing, a statement of interest, marks a significant intervention by the Trump administration’s DOJ, which already cleared the merger in June after an eight-month investigation that reviewed more than two million documents. All other global regulators have also approved the deal, leaving the state lawsuit as the primary remaining obstacle.
The 12 states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and including New York, New J...