Court temporarily blocks Warner Bros./Paramount Merger at Attorney General Ellison’s request

Court’s temporary restraining order halts the merger while the court considers a preliminary injunction, which would block the merger for the duration of the lawsuit that AG Ellison filed on July 13

July 20, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison today issued the following statement after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted the motion for a temporary restraining order to halt the merger of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (Warner Bros.) by Paramount Skydance Corporation (Paramount). The temporary restraining order halts merger while the court considers a ruling on a preliminary injunction, which would block the merger for the duration of the litigation. On July 13, Attorney General Ellison joined a coalition of 12 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging the unlawful merger, which is expected to result in higher prices, lower content quality, and fewer movies and TV shows. 

“The stakes of this proposed merger — the largest in media and entertainment history — are very high, and the potential costs to Minnesotans are astronomical,” Attorney General Ellison said. “I filed this lawsuit because Minnesotans and all Americans deserve a fair marketplace where they can afford entertainment and have the widest possible range of options, and because we cannot let a tiny handful of corporations dictate this for us. I’m grateful the court has temporarily paused the merger. My fellow AGs and I are keeping our pedal on the gas to block it permanently.”

For more than a century, Warner Bros. and Paramount have stood astride the film and television industry as independent sources of creativity and competition. The proposed $110 billion merger — the largest in Hollywood history — would combine two of Hollywood’s five major film distributors and two of the five major owners of basic cable channels, extinguishing competition between Paramount and Warner Bros., and inflicting substantial harm on movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences nationwide.

The lawsuit alleges that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly are illegal. The attorneys general allege that, if Warner Bros. and Paramount are allowed to merge, it would lessen competition in three markets: film distribution, anticipated blockbuster film distribution, and licensing cable TV channels.