Paramount Skydance asked a judge on Friday to schedule its upcoming antitrust trial in November, while a coalition of states and the Writers Guild of America asked for a date in April 2027.
The scheduling matters a lot to Paramount, which will begin paying Warner Bros. shareholders $7 million a day on Sept. 30 until the deal is complete. In the filing, Paramount argued that a delay also “prejudices the creative industry, the individuals who work within it, and the consumers who benefit from it.”
Any postponement of the trial, Paramount argued, prolongs an uncertain environment.
“Deciding what projects to commit to, and when, is already difficult for creative professionals tryingto find the right opportunities in a dynamic industry; doing so in an atmosphere of intense businessuncertainty is even harder,” the company’s lawyers argued.
The states, meanwhile, are seeking additional time to obtain documents and take depositions from Paramount executives. The trial is expected to last 2-3 weeks in federal court in Oakland, and will depend heavily on expert testimony from economists.
