A Delaware judge ruled that the merger of $ 8 billion of Paramount Global with Skydance Media could move forward-but still left the door open for a rival last-minute offer, which they say may disrupt the deal.
Kathaleen McCormick, President of the Delaware Court of Chancellor, denied a request from New York’s pension funds to block the agreement with a temporary restriction order in order to open a bid war between Skydance and a consortium of investors called Project Rise Partners, which offered $ 8.8 billion.
The judge issued a pension fund permit to detect in this case and to renovate their motion to block the agreement.
She also ordered the Paramount Board to give funds the preliminary notice for a closing date, “optimally not less than five business days”.
The deal is scheduled to close as soon as March 20th.
“It is a color claim that Redstone violated her trust tasks of paramount shareholders,” McCormick, according to Bloomberg, said. “Also also a colored claim that Skydance parties consciously participated in these violations.”
In legal terms, a colored claim means one that is reasonable.
“It’s not a bad result for Skydance,” one source said, adding that the judge will take time to examine all the materials before deciding. “The judge wants a closed and loaded agreement. She is a full judge. ”
However, the ruling gives the plaintiffs time to build their case that the project Rise Partners, and perhaps other researchers, must be able to submit competitive proposals to the Special Committee Paramount.
Plaintiffs can now remove a whistle, as well as minutes of meetings held by the Special Paramount Committee that is negotiating.
Meanwhile, the Federal Communication Commission is investigating charges of political prejudice at Paramount CBS News over a “60 minutes” interview with former President Kamala Harris.
Charles Gasparino reported exclusively last week that the FCC decision could withdraw until summer.
Separately, President Trump has entered into talks of primary mediation about resolving his $ 20 billion lawsuit claiming media prejudice during the election. The result of those mediation talks can affect FCC, sources said.
Judge McCormick is likely to need to be comfortable to have a reliable alternative offer before actually blocking $ 8 billion of Skydance-Paramount Union.
At the beginning of last month, New York Public Pension Funds were indicted to block the Skydance Union Agreement, whose exclusive terms have prevented Paramount from taking into account any rival bid, including the highest bid of the $ 8.8 billion project consortium.
The Paramount Board allegedly did not seriously consider the offer of the reset project during the auction process, the lawsuit says.
“Plaintiffs made zero attempts at the hearing to protect the reliability of project growth. Not a word for him,” said a source close to the case.
New York City pensions claim that Skydance is buying the Shari Redstone Media legacy of the Stock Control in Paramount with a much higher premium than ordinary shareholders are paying and that ordinary shareholders were left out of the process without a vote.
Judge McCormick last year withdrew the $ 56 billion -billion dollars’ Board of Tesla’s $ 56 billion package.
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