Paramount is pressing California, eleven other states and the Writers Guild of America to post a $1.88 billion bond to cover the financial fallout of their lawsuits delaying its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The studio argues the litigation has already pushed the deal months past its planned late-September closing date, forcing it to bear mounting costs while rivals such as Netflix and Amazon continue to expand, and it says antitrust law entitles it to compensation if it ultimately wins the case.

In July, US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín paused the deal and set a trial for March, well beyond the original closing target. Warner Bros Discovery shareholders are owed around $650 million per quarter, or $6.9 million a day, if the merger has not closed by 1 October, and Paramount says the bond should reflect that potential payout plus legal costs. The states and WGA counter that Paramount only proposed the fee to win shareholder backing when Netflix was a rival bidder, and dispute that a formal injunction was even issued, since Paramount voluntarily agreed to delay under a joint stipulation. Courts have historically been reluctant to impose large bonds in merger disputes, as in the Nexstar-Tegna case where a judge awarded just $10,000 against a $150 million request; regulators in 69 countries have already cleared the Paramount-Warner deal.