Skydance-Paramount Merger Hits A Major Snag
By Movieguide® Contributor
Skydance blasted a rival bidder for attempting to “hijack” their pending $8 billion merger with Paramount Global.
Project Rise Partners, an investment group, submitted an offer for Paramount after the 45-day “go-shop” period had already come to an end last summer.
“Project Rise is seeking to hijack this Commission proceeding to buy time for litigation to proceed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, in an effort to force Paramount’s Board to consider Project Rise’s belated — and unserious — bid to acquire the company,” Skydance’s legal team said in a letter filed with the FCC. “But its objections here are as untimely as its bid, and it plainly lacks standing to object to the proposed transaction. In any event, Project Rise’s broadsides against the Skydance Consortium and the proposed transaction have no factual support or legal merit.”
In another letter, sent to opposing counsel, Skydance’s legal team accused Project Rise of “fraudulently misrepresent[ing] itself,” adding that they have “uncovered additional facts which suggest PRP’s fraud runs even deeper than these misrepresentations.”
“Project Rise’s letter represents a bad-faith effort to sully the reputation of the Skydance Consortium and to delay approval of the Proposed Transaction,” Skydance’s letter finished. “Having failed to submit a timely (or credible) bid to acquire Paramount, Project Rise now resorts to a misuse of the Commission’s process, asserting untimely and frivolous arguments without any demonstration of standing. The Commission should reject its baseless claims and proposed information requests out of hand.”
This isn’t the only legal hurdle Skydance and Paramount have faced as they work to move this merger forward.
Last week, a Delaware judge declined to issue a temporary restraining order to block the deal, but did agree to speed up a shareholder lawsuit seeking pension funds that had been invested with Paramount.
“Although plaintiffs have demonstrated harm sufficient to support expedition, there does not seem harm proximate enough to warrant a TRO,” Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick wrote in her eight-page ruling, per Reuters.
The Skydance-Paramount merger is also facing an inquiry from the FCC that accuses CBS of deceptively editing a 60 MINUTES interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Last month, Paramount announced the merger was still set to close before the end of June. However, others think the FCC might drag their decision out for the next few months and into the second half of the year.
“The commission indicated to us that they are in no rush to push this through and will fully investigate our claims,” Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights (CAR), told the New York Post.
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