WGA ends court fight over Paramount-Warner Bros merger
The Writers Guild of America has settled its lawsuit to block Paramount Skydance's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Guild's East and West branches, the labour unions that represent film and television writers in the United States, confirmed the settlement in a statement released Monday, 21 September 2026, according to Variety. The fight is over. The objections are not.
Under the settlement, Paramount agreed to pay $17.5 million into the Guild's health fund and cover the Guild's legal fees for the case. Paramount also agreed to a five-year ban on writer layoffs at CBS News Broadcast, the television news operation it owns.
The Guild said it still believes the merger will damage writers and the wider industry. It said it agreed to settle because it would have had to pursue a complex competition case alone, without government lawyers, at a cost of millions of dollars through trial.
That decision followed a separate deal between Paramount and 12 state attorneys general over the acquisition. California Attorney General Rob Bonta led the state group, reported by Deadline. That settlement removes a major obstacle to closing the acquisition, according to Variety. The $111 billion price tag was reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
The Guild filed its challenge on 14 July 2026 as Case No. 3:26-cv-07212. At the time, it argued the deal would hurt writers by shrinking the number of buyers for their work, according to Reuters. Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery had announced a definitive merger agreement on 27 February 2026.
California and 11 other states had separately sued to block the deal. Hollywood workers rallied against the combination in June, when California and New York officials were weighing action over competition and labour concerns.
For viewers, this means the screen business just moved one step closer to having fewer large owners. Two Hollywood studios, two news operations and two streaming services sit inside this one deal. The lawsuits are clearing. The closing process is not yet done.
