Paramount Wants States Suing Over Its Warner Bros. Deal to Post a $1.88 Billion Bond

Paramount Skydance is asking a federal judge to require the 12 states suing to block its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — along with the Writers Guild of America, which filed a related suit — to post a $1.88 billion bond before the case goes further, arguing the states should have to guarantee Paramount's losses if they ultimately lose.

A dispute over who bears the risk

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general sued in July to block the roughly $110 billion combination, arguing it would create a media conglomerate large enough to raise prices for film and television content. The Writers Guild filed a separate suit, saying the deal would hurt writers' pay and working conditions. Paramount has voluntarily paused the transaction while the case proceeds, rather than being blocked by a court injunction — a distinction now at the center of the bond fight.

Paramount says Bonta contradicted himself

In a filing this week, Paramount argued that Bonta undermined his own legal position by describing the voluntary pause as functionally equivalent to a court injunction in television interviews, even though his written arguments treat the pause as something Paramount chose on its own. Paramount says that inconsistency supports its case that antitrust law requires the states to post a bond covering the roughly $1.3 billion in Warner Bros. shareholder-related costs it expects to pay by the time litigation concludes.

What's next

A hearing on the bond request is scheduled for Sept. 24, 2026. The underlying antitrust trial over whether the merger can proceed at all isn't set to begin until March 2, 2027 — meaning the fight over who pays for the delay will likely be resolved well before the core question of whether the deal survives.