California AG Bonta Cancels Paramount Settlement Meeting Over Alleged Leaks

California Attorney General Rob Bonta scrapped a planned settlement meeting with Paramount Skydance on Monday, August 24, accusing the company of leaking details of confidential talks and negotiating in bad faith. The cancellation lands in the middle of a multi-state antitrust fight over Paramount's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, and it comes with a hard deadline bearing down on both sides.

Bonta said his office met with Paramount representatives on Friday, August 21, to set ground rules for Monday's session, which was supposed to include Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison. Confidentiality was one of those ground rules. By Sunday night, the Wall Street Journal was publishing specifics anyway.

"Paramount did not maintain the confidentiality of that meeting," Bonta said in a statement carried by CNBC, the New York Times, TheWrap and others. "Not only did Paramount leak the alleged substance of settlement discussions, but they misrepresented these discussions, demonstrating a lack of good faith."

According to the Journal's reporting, cited by the LA Times, Forbes and awfulannouncing, Bonta intended to ask Paramount to divest a chunk of its cable networks, since the combined company would control more than 50 channels including CNN, HGTV, MTV, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network. He also planned to push for keeping the Warner Bros. and Paramount film studios operationally separate, which Ellison has treated as a nonstarter given his stated goal of building one combined studio.

Paramount denies it was the source of any leak. "As we have assured the Attorney General's office, Paramount has not been the source of the leaks of any of our confidential discussions with the AG's office," the company said in a statement to TheWrap and Cosmic Book News. Paramount added it remains "hopeful and ready to continue good faith discussions."

Deadline reported it heard details of the Friday meeting from "a variety of sources," which the outlet itself suggested was a signal the leaking wasn't necessarily one-sided. Nobody has produced proof of who actually talked. Both sides have a motive to leak favorable framing and blame the other guy, and neither side has been caught red-handed by any source reviewed here.

Bonta is leading 12 state attorneys general suing to block the merger, arguing it would hand one company outsized control over cable and film. A trial is scheduled for March, alongside a related Writers Guild of America case.

The stakes are financial and immediate. Deadline and TheWrap both report that starting October 1, Paramount begins paying Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders a 25-cent-per-share "ticking fee" until the deal closes, translating to roughly $650 million a quarter, or about $7 million a day, according to TheWrap. If the merger collapses altogether, Deadline reports Paramount would owe WBD a $7 billion breakup fee.

Paramount has also asked a federal judge to force the suing states to post a $1.9 billion bond to cover what it calls the "extraordinary losses" the litigation could cause, a request Deadline says Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin had already signaled she's unlikely to grant.

The economic pressure extends beyond the two companies. Deadline reports a filing submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on August 19 estimates roughly 4,500 direct TV and film jobs at risk, with the county's Department of Economic Opportunity projecting billions in lost wages and $547 million in lost tax revenue if the merger drags on or collapses.

That's fueling a bipartisan-flavored pressure campaign most outlets covered similarly. The Directors Guild of America, IATSE, Cinema United, and studio and theater executives including Lionsgate's Jon Feltheimer and WME's Ari Emanuel have all called for a settlement, according to Variety and TheWrap. On the political side, the LA Times reports Governor Gavin Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass and gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra have all urged Bonta to settle rather than go to trial.

Ellison, meanwhile, has floated moving Paramount out of California entirely, to Georgia, Texas or Tennessee, a threat Deadline describes Bonta's camp as viewing as something close to blackmail. Ellison has also written op-eds framing the fight as being about CNN specifically, a framing Bonta has pushed back on, telling CNBC last week his suit isn't focused on streaming, CNN or foreign regulators.

No investigation into the leak's source has been announced by any party, and no evidence beyond dueling statements has surfaced establishing who actually talked to reporters. Bonta's accusation against Paramount is exactly that: an accusation. Paramount's denial is likewise just a denial. Readers should treat "who leaked" as unresolved, not decided.

What is decided is the timeline. Ellison's self-imposed October 1 deadline to reach a resolution is five weeks away. The ticking fees start the same day. The March trial date hasn't moved. Whether Bonta and Paramount get back to a table before then, or let the meter run, is the next thing to watch.