A federal judge has already put the deal on hold once, and the Writers Guild of America is pursuing a parallel lawsuit on a similar timeline. Bonta, leading a coalition of a dozen states, contends that merging two of Hollywood’s five major studios with two of its five major cable programmers would give the combined company control over roughly a third of the nation’s theatrical film and basic cable business.

That’s a case worth watching closely for Southern Californians, given how deeply the entertainment industry is woven into the region’s economy and identity. But history suggests that megadeals of this size rarely conclude with a tidy courtroom knockout. More often, they end in settlements, scaled-back court orders, or restructured proposals. Paramount has already demonstrated a willingness to accept delay after delay rather than abandon the merger outright.

That raises an important question: if some version of this deal ultimately survives, what should California require in return?

The remedies typically discussed in antitrust fights — forced divestitures, licensing restrictions, content firewalls — are the usual playbook. But they can be difficult to enforce and are often vulnerable to further litigation. One option that hasn’t received nearly enough attention is reshaping how the merged company is governed from the inside, specifically through its board of directors.

Should this case end in a settlement, a consent decree, or a court-approved version of the merger, California should push for the resulting company’s board to include labor representatives and public-interest voices with genuine voting power — not token advisory roles. That means seats for union members who write, produce and support this programming, along with representatives who can advocate for California audiences, readers and communities that lose access to independent journalism every time the media industry consolidates further.

The reasoning is straightforward. When one company dominates a market, the damage isn’t limited to higher prices. It can also mean lower wages, worse working conditions, and a narrowing of the viewpoints that reach the public, simply because there are fewer employers and outlets to turn to. These consequences don’t always show up in a standard antitrust analysis, but they are precisely the harms Bonta’s legal team has already flagged. His office’s court filings have raised concerns about newsroom cutbacks and the potential fallout for CNN and CBS News specifically.

Giving workers and the public actual voting power on the board would create an ongoing check on decisions about layoffs, programming choices and the range of stories being told — rather than a temporary condition that disappears once regulators move on to the next case.

This approach would also be less heavy-handed than the usual remedies. A full-scale divestiture can be a blunt tool that sometimes just creates smaller monopolies instead of solving the underlying problem. Embedding labor and public-interest representation directly into company governance allows for whatever legitimate business efficiencies a merger might create, while ensuring the people most vulnerable to its downsides have a lasting say in what happens next. Similar stakeholder governance models have already been used successfully by other companies both in the U.S. and internationally.

This isn’t a conventional fix for an antitrust case, but the risks posed by this merger aren’t conventional either. Combining two major news organizations with a large share of the country’s remaining scripted television market would reshape the media landscape well beyond the lifespan of any single court ruling.

Bonta has built credibility by taking this fight to court instead of settling for token concessions. Whatever comes next — a courtroom victory, a negotiated settlement, or a revised deal that lands back on his desk — he should keep governance reform on the table as a serious option.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Antitrust Concerns Loom Over Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger as California Weighs Regulatory Response appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Assembly Bill 1776, known as the Compete Act, cleared both chambers of the Legislature after its author, Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry of Davis, agreed to soften several provisions that had drawn fierce opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce and major biomedical and pharmaceutical companies.

As passed, the bill would let the state attorney general and local district attorneys sue individual companies over alleged anticompetitive conduct. Currently, California’s century-old antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, only allows such lawsuits when multiple businesses are accused of colluding together — leaving prosecutors with little recourse against a single dominant company accused of abusive market behavior.

Aguiar-Curry said the measure responds to decades of business consolidation that has reshaped entire industries since the late 1990s. She based the legislation on findings from a three-year study by the Legislature’s California Law Revision Commission, which examined whether the 1907-era Cartwright Act needed modernizing.

“This is a strong step forward for antitrust enforcement and helps our public enforcers take on monopoly behavior while protecting our workers, consumers, and small businesses,” Aguiar-Curry said.

Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento, backed the bill on the Senate floor, pointing to local examples of how market concentration hurts everyday businesses.

“Here in Sacramento, our independent venues struggle to compete in a world where only a few companies control platforms,” Ashby said. “Across the state, our independent bookstores are being undercut by massive chains. Restaurants have fewer suppliers and pay higher prices for things” like ingredients and basic supplies.

The bill passed the Senate 30-9 and the Assembly 55-15, with most Republicans voting no. Neither chamber engaged in extended floor debate before the votes.

Consumer groups, labor unions and small business advocates rallied behind the legislation, arguing it would stop large corporations from squashing competitors and suppressing wages. Even after the bill was scaled back, supporters called its passage a significant victory.

“What is going to the governor is a bill that lets California’s attorney general and district attorneys go after the dominant corporations that block competitors, squeeze out small businesses, suppress wages, and drive up prices,” said Teri Olle, vice president of Economic Security California Action, a group pushing for stronger antitrust enforcement.

The California Chamber of Commerce, which represents nearly 12,000 businesses statewide, fought hard against the bill throughout the session, calling it one of its top legislative priorities to defeat. Chamber officials took particular issue with an early version of the bill that would have allowed private individuals and companies — not just prosecutors — to sue businesses directly over alleged anticompetitive practices.

“We think it’s very, very, very, very flawed and dangerous,” Ben Golombek, the chamber’s head of policy, said during an August panel discussion.

The chamber placed the bill on its annual list of legislative “cost drivers,” put up billboards near the state Capitol criticizing Aguiar-Curry by name, and later launched a seven-figure advertising campaign against the measure. Once the author removed the private right of action and made other changes, the chamber dropped its formal opposition.

Questions remain about how much the new authority could cost the state. The Department of Finance opposed the bill, citing uncertainty over how many cases the attorney general’s office might pursue and whether existing funding sources — the Unfair Competition Law Fund and the Attorney General Antitrust Account — would be enough to cover the expense.

That concern carries weight given Attorney General Rob Bonta’s active record challenging corporate consolidation. Bonta recently led opposition to Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, signaling his office’s willingness to take on major antitrust fights if the bill becomes law.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Lawmakers Pass Bill Strengthening State’s Power to Sue Big Businesses Over Monopoly Practices appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The bill, authored by Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Davis Democrat, would make it easier to sue companies in state court over alleged anti-competitive behavior. Under the measure, individuals and businesses who believe they’ve been harmed by a company’s efforts to squash competition could bring their own legal action, rather than relying solely on state or federal regulators to step in. Smaller firms — those with 100 or fewer employees and average annual gross receipts of at least $10 million over the past three years — would be shielded from the law.

Supporters argue the change is overdue. Aguiar-Curry and other backers point to federal antitrust enforcement, which they say has grown increasingly passive even as entire sectors of the American economy have consolidated into the hands of a few dominant players. More than three-quarters of U.S. industries have seen this kind of consolidation since the late 1990s, according to the assemblymember.

“When companies gain that much power and abuse it, that means higher prices, less choice, fewer opportunities for job creators to start small businesses and suppressed wages for working families,” Aguiar-Curry told colleagues during a June hearing.

But the proposal has run into resistance from business groups, who warn it would expose companies to a wave of costly litigation and give what they call predatory law firms a new avenue to pressure businesses into settlements. Several moderate Democrats have echoed those concerns, saying the bill could make California an even tougher place to operate a business.

“We want to make sure that we are not stifling competition by virtue of the threat of lawsuits,” said state Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat.

Umberg was among lawmakers who declined to cast a vote when the bill came before the Senate Judiciary Committee in June. He joined 16 Assembly Democrats who similarly withheld support during an earlier floor vote in May. The measure now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where its fate remains uncertain as lawmakers continue to weigh consumer protection against the concerns of the business community.

For Inland Empire and Southern California business owners watching the debate, the outcome could carry real consequences — either a stronger avenue for challenging monopolistic practices that squeeze out competitors, or a new source of legal exposure that adds to the cost of doing business in the state.

In other Sacramento news, the University of California is pushing back on reports suggesting it has abandoned plans to reconsider the SAT for undergraduate admissions. UC officials say a fresh evaluation of the test’s role remains on the table, even as the original timeline has shifted. The clarification comes amid growing pressure from some faculty members who want the test reinstated, arguing it offers a valuable, consistent benchmark for incoming students — particularly those pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. The UC Board of Regents eliminated the SAT requirement in 2020 amid concerns it disadvantaged low-income applicants, and only the regents have the authority to bring it back.

Meanwhile, the California Supreme Court is preparing to hear a series of cases challenging the use of undercover jailhouse informants, a controversial law enforcement technique known as a Perkins operation. Critics say the tactic — in which agents posing as fellow inmates, often larger and more experienced than their targets, attempt to elicit confessions — is coercive and falls disproportionately on Black and Latino defendants. A CalMatters investigation found that among cases now before the state’s high court, defendants are split among Hispanic, Black and white individuals, but a broader review of murder cases from 2015 to 2023 found Black defendants were targeted for these stings more than four times as often as white defendants.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Weighs Giving Consumers More Power to Sue Large Corporations appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Assembly Bill 1776, known as the COMPETE Act, would broaden California’s antitrust laws to let individuals and businesses take companies to state court if they believe unfair, monopolistic tactics have caused them harm. Currently, such lawsuits generally require proof that two or more companies conspired to squeeze out competitors. Federal law does allow claims against a single company acting alone, but supporters of the bill argue that federal courts have weakened antitrust protections so significantly that California needs its own, stronger version.

The debate has emerged as one of the more heated fights of this legislative session, drawing battle lines between labor unions and trial attorneys on one side and business and technology lobbying groups on the other. Together, these interests have poured more than $106 million into California campaign coffers since 2000, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

Backers of the bill say it would give everyday Californians a legal tool to keep neighborhood grocery stores and pharmacies from being squeezed out, prevent single corporations from controlling entire supply chains that farms and restaurants depend on, and preserve patient choice in health care.

Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Davis Democrat who authored the bill, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that more than three-quarters of American industries have grown increasingly consolidated since the late 1990s.

“When companies gain that much power and abuse it, that means higher prices, less choice, fewer opportunities for job creators to start small businesses and suppressed wages for working families,” Aguiar-Curry told the panel.

Business advocates counter that the measure would open the door for opportunistic law firms to target companies with costly lawsuits, regardless of merit. They point to California’s history with other consumer-protection statutes — covering disability access, product warning labels, wage claims and privacy — that critics say have spawned a cottage industry of litigation aimed more at settlements than genuine reform.

The California Chamber of Commerce has been especially vocal in its opposition, going so far as to put up billboards near the state Capitol earlier this year calling out Aguiar-Curry by name. One read: “Cecilia, prices are high enough already. Don’t make life more expensive for California consumers.” A Chamber spokesperson declined to comment further on the billboard campaign.

Rather than quiet the bill’s momentum, though, the public pressure campaign appears to have strengthened support among many Democrats, even as some moderates in the party remain uneasy about the potential impact on businesses operating in the state.

Babette Boliek, a law professor at Pepperdine University and former chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission, said those concerns aren’t unfounded. She argues the bill’s language is too vague, potentially giving judges broad discretion to rule based on sympathy rather than clear evidence of harm — comparing it to enforcing “a speed limit that no one knows exists.”

In response to criticism, Aguiar-Curry’s office added a carve-out meant to shield small, independently owned California businesses — those with 100 or fewer employees and average annual gross revenue under $10 million over the past three years.

Still, Cal Chamber Executive Vice President Ben Golombek argues that thousands of businesses of all sizes would remain exposed to expensive litigation, including lawsuits filed by rival companies. “This unprecedented and massive legal liability for businesses of every size — small, medium, and large — that this bill creates is why we’re so opposed to it,” he said.

On the other side, labor leaders say the measure is overdue. Mark Ramos, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council, said increasing consolidation among grocery chains has made it harder for workers to negotiate fair wages, since fewer competitors means less pressure on employers to offer better pay. “With that consolidation has come the larger challenge of not being able to negotiate a contract that allows our members to kind of thrive in their local economy because these grocers no longer have to compete against each other,” Ramos said.

Despite the bill’s momentum, some Democrats remain cautious. Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has raised concerns about allowing private citizens and businesses — rather than just government prosecutors — to file these lawsuits. He has pushed for enforcement to rest solely with the state attorney general and local district attorneys, at least for now.

“We want to make sure that we are not stifling competition by virtue of the threat of lawsuits,” Umberg told the committee.

Aguiar-Curry has agreed to make several changes Umberg requested but has stopped short of limiting enforcement power to prosecutors alone. She said she would keep refining the bill to make it “harder to bring a meritless suit” before its next hearing.

The bill cleared the Judiciary Committee, with only Republicans voting against it. However, Umberg abstained rather than casting a “no” vote — a move that carries the same practical effect. He was among 16 Democrats who declined to vote when the bill narrowly passed the Assembly, a common maneuver lawmakers use to avoid publicly opposing legislation backed by powerful allies while still signaling discomfort.

The COMPETE Act is next scheduled to be heard by the Senate Appropriations Committee when the Legislature reconvenes from summer recess in early August.

Supporters are hoping the final version of the bill preserves the right of ordinary Californians to sue over anticompetitive conduct. Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, an advocacy group focused on curbing corporate monopolies, said allowing private lawsuits is essential to keeping large corporations in check.

Without that option, he warned, companies with deep pockets and political influence could pressure regulators and lawmakers into looking the other way. “The private right of action is a critical backstop to the politicization of antitrust enforcement, which threatens the entire project of policing markets for fairness,” Hepner said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Democrats Split Over Proposal Making It Easier to Sue Corporations appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.