Two Republican attorneys general are hoping the Supreme Court will step in to stop the antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 Democratic state AGs seeking to block Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Montana AG Austin Knudsen filed a motion with the Supreme Court, naming California and the 11 other states party to the Paramount lawsuit as defendants. The suit was filed on Tuesday, Aug. 25, according to Bird’s office. “Plaintiffs, the State of Iowa and State of Montana, respectfully move this Court for leave to file the attached Bill of Complaint to stop a politicized enforcement action that seeks to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger,” the filing says.
The development will test the Supreme Court’s interpretation of its authority to settle inter-state disputes. The U.S. Supreme Court is the court of original jurisdiction for issues that arise among states for things like boundary disputes and water rights, and it’s not clear the court will agree to hear the motion filed by Iowa and Montana regarding litigation that those states are not a party to.
Experts say the Iowa-Montana appeal is unlikely to go anywhere. “The Supreme Court is more likely to declare Donald Trump ‘litigator of the year’ than it is to block the states from enforcing their own antitrust rules,” said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
