Paramount has agreed to a request from 12 US states to link their new federal antitrust challenge to its proposed $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to an existing lawsuit brought by Paramount+ subscribers. If the cases are formally related, they will probably be handled by Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in California, who is already overseeing the earlier subscriber case. The development matters because it could streamline the legal fight over the merger and place both public and private objections before one judge as opponents seek to stop the deal from closing.

The states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, filed their suit in the Northern District of California and are seeking both a temporary restraining order and an injunction, although no hearing has yet been set on that request. The subscriber lawsuit, filed in April, argues that the merger would reduce competition and raise prices, and Judge Martinez-Olguin is due to hear arguments on Thursday over both a preliminary injunction and Paramount’s attempt to dismiss that case. Before the move to relate the cases, the states’ suit had been randomly assigned to Judge P. Casey Pitts, who is also overseeing another major merger challenge involving Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.