Paramount has increased the pressure on Warner Bros Discovery to restart negotiations, threatening a proxy fight to overhaul the Hollywood studio’s board and filing a lawsuit to obtain internal financial information.
The move is the latest escalation in Paramount’s efforts to gatecrash Netflix’s $82.7bn deal to buy WBD’s studio and streaming business, after the media group rejected Paramount’s $108bn for the whole business including its cable channels. After losing to Netflix, Paramount almost immediately went directly to shareholders with a hostile bid.
Paramount said on Monday that it “intends to nominate directors for election” at WBD’s annual meeting later this year as well as encouraging shareholders to vote “against the approval of the Netflix transaction”.