UK Govt Backs Paramount’s $110Bn Warner Bros Takeover

The British government has cleared Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying it had received assurances from the company over media diversity.

UK’s anti-trust regulator said that it had decided not to further investigate the deal, weeks after British culture minister Lisa Nandy said she was considering intervening.

“We have cleared this deal as it does not raise competition concerns in the UK. The evidence shows that, after the merger, Paramount will continue to face sufficient competition in the various areas it operates in,” the Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement.

The UK’s culture department also said Paramount had provided several assurances, including that it would maintain “distinct editorial identities of key services and the editorial independence of news.” The company has offered to make those assurances legally binding, the department said in a statement.