Oregon attorney general launches legal attack on the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger

Specifically, AG Dan Rayfield and his team have stated that they aren’t so much interested in looking into the purchase—which started moving forward late last year, after Paramount out-maneuvered Netflix for the acquisition at least in part on promises it would have an easier time getting past regulators—as CEO David Ellison and his team’s efforts to curry favor with those same regulators. Rayfield went so far as to suggest that the approval may have been “the product of a corrupt bargain,” demanding that Paramount turn over documents related to its regulator lobbying strategies, which were apparently codenamed “Project Warrior” in what we can only assume was a successful effort to give Pete Hegseth a boner. Rayfield and his team are also seeking any evidence that Paramount had any hand in the DOJ issuing a somewhat unusual statement last month explaining why it wasn’t regulating the merger, which included glowing language about how the sale would “increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers.”

Paramount’s counterargument has, essentially, boiled down to “Stop hassling us,” arguing that their lobbying strategies don’t have any direct impact on whether the sale violates state antitrust laws, and suggesting that sending Rayfield’s office the documents they’re asking for would be more trouble than it’s worth. In any case, the request is now before Multnomah County Superior Court Judge Eric Dahlin, who’s expected to hold a hearing on the matter on Monday; regardless of how Dahlin ends up ruling, it’ll be interesting to see if the Oregon AG’s actions will spur similar efforts from him contemporaries in New York and California, as the mid-July expected closing date for the sale looms.