Paramount Agrees to Leave Universal Joint Venture to Secure EU Clearance for Warner Bros. Discovery Merger

Paramount plans to withdraw from its United International Pictures distribution joint venture with Universal in order to obtain EU clearance for its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

This step follows a request from the European Commission’s antitrust authority last week for Paramount to leave the venture. On Wednesday, the Commission noted that Paramount Skydance had filed a regulatory document confirming its intention to exit UIP, and that the provisional deadline for a merger decision has been pushed back from July 7 to July 22.

Founded in 1981 and headquartered in London, United International Pictures has been reduced in scope and now operates as a distributor in select European markets such as Denmark, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.

Paramount did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The deal, signed in February after a lengthy battle with Netflix, would combine Paramount’s assets—CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, and Paramount+—with Warner Bros. Discovery’s holdings, including HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros. Pictures, CNN, TNT, TBS, HGTV, and others.

The EU Commission’s review represents one of the final major regulatory hurdles for Ellison as he seeks to build a global media giant. The transaction is also under scrutiny in the U.K., where the British government may intervene, according to Lisa Nandy, the U.K. Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. On Tuesday, Nandy warned that the merger could threaten media plurality in the United Kingdom. If approved, the deal would place U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 and TNT Sports under common ownership alongside the Paramount+ and newly launched HBO Max streaming services.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Company, and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) are together contributing $24 billion to the Hollywood mega‑merger. Neither the EU nor the U.K. regulators have indicated that this investment poses a problem.

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