Renowned sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler is taking on a different kind of assignment.
Kessler, partner and co-executive chairman of Winston Taylor, signed on to represent Paramount Skydance as the entertainment company defends its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery from mounting opposition. He appeared on CNBC on Tuesday to advocate for the merger as Paramount fights 12 state attorneys general who have filed a lawsuit attempting to block the merger.
In Kessler, Paramount has enlisted one of the most powerful lawyers in the entire sports industry. Kessler is known for representing individuals against leagues or governing bodies—including the NFL, NCAA, and U.S. Soccer, among others. (Though not a sports-specific case, Kessler also recently represented dozens of state AGs in a legal battle alleging antitrust violations against Live Nation and Ticketmaster.)
In the Paramount case, however, he’s arguably taken the opposite side: representing a multibillion-dollar company looking to defend against allegations that a merger with another multibillion-dollar company, WBD, violates antitrust law.
“If you follow my career, you know that I try to take on significant cases that will advance the goal of competition that underlies the antitrust laws,” Kessler said in a statement to Front Office Sports. “Often, these are plaintiff cases, such as my cases against the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, the NCAA, and, most recently, against Live Nation. But I also have done many defense-side antitrust cases when I believe the antitrust claims being asserted would actually hurt, not help, competition. This is why I took on the defense of the Paramount–Warner Bros merger.”
