California Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would consider "structural remedies" to settle the antitrust lawsuit challenging the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger, but rejected "behavioral" pledges such as David Ellison's promise to release 30 films a year, calling it an "old, stale promise" that is hard to enforce. His comments, made at a Politico conference in Sacramento, come as the dispute between his office and Paramount escalates and follow reports that Ellison plans to begin relocating Paramount out of California from 1 October unless the AG's office agrees to open settlement talks.

Bonta, who leads a coalition of state attorneys general suing to block the $111-billion deal, said structural remedies would mean keeping certain corporate entities separate in the markets the lawsuit targets: wide-release films, blockbuster films and cable programming. He said he believed Paramount-WBD were "eager" to negotiate and claimed the state had won every development in the case so far, while dismissing suggestions the suit is politically motivated to prevent CNN and CBS News combining, insisting the case has "little, if any" connection to CNN. The case is scheduled to go to trial in March.