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(Sharecast News) - Paramount Skydance on Monday said it planned to nominate directors to the Warner Bros Discovery board to vote against its $83bn takeover by Netflix and also filed a lawsuit seeking disclosure of the deal's financial details.
Paramount chief executive David Ellison on Monday said the suit was filed in the Delaware Chancery Court asking the court "to simply direct WBD to provide this information so that WBD shareholders have what they need to be able to make an informed decision as to whether to tender their shares into our offer".
Paramount is locked in a battle with Netflix for control of the movie studio and streaming business. It's $108bn offer was rejected last month, with Warner calling it inadequate and questioning the company's ability to finance the deal.
Its bid has a personal $40bn guarantee by Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle and father of the Paramount CEO.
Warner's board continues to back the Netflix offer after last month agreeing to sell its streaming and studio business.
"WBD has provided increasingly novel reasons for avoiding a transaction with Paramount, but what it has never said, because it cannot, is that the Netflix transaction is financially superior to our actual offer," Paramount wrote in a letter to Warner Bros shareholders.
"Unless the WBD board of directors decides to exercise its right to engage with us under the Netflix merger agreement, this will likely come down to your vote at a shareholder meeting."
The proposed deal was the result of a sale process in which Paramount was bidding for all of WBD's assets, including its portfolio of cable TV channels, known as Discovery Global. As part of the Netflix deal Warner Bros plans to separate Discovery Global into its own publicly traded entity.
Warner's studio has produced the Harry Potter, Superman and Batman franchises, while the streaming operations are home to HBO, broadcaster of Game of Thrones, The White Lotus and Succession.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
