A federal judge tossed out an antitrust challenge to the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger that was brought by a group of consumers.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín wrote that the plaintiffs in the case had failed to establish standing, but she will allow them to file a revised complaint.
“Plaintiffs’ standing theory amounts to little more than the assertion that they are consumers who watch television and go to the movies, and therefore a merger between entertainment companies would injure them,” the judge wrote.
She also wrote that the plaintiffs alleged “only one concrete and particularized injury – a single, historical priceincrease on Paramount+.” But the injury was “not suffered in the same way by all five of the plaintiffs,” the judge wrote.
Martínez-Olguín also is presiding over the separate antitrust cases challenging the merger brought by state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. On Tuesday, she set a trial date for March.
Paramount’s legal team argued that the plaintiffs — Pamela Faust, Len Marazzo, Lisa McCarthy, Deborah Rubinsohn and Gary Talewsky — did not have standing, and that they failed to state a plausible claim of competitive harm from the merger.
The judge held a hearing in the case earlier this month, but denied the plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction.
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