(Bloomberg) — Skydance Media, the independent movie and TV studio that’s seeking to merge with Paramount Global, fired back at complaints by rival bidder Project Rise Partners in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission Monday.
Attorneys for Skydance said Project Rise’s bid was “unserious” and submitted too late to be considered. They said Project Rise Co-Chair Daphna Ziman’s previous company, Cinemoi, North America, declared bankruptcy last year, and that the partnership’s other co-chair, Moses Gross, has no history of financing public company transactions.
“Even if Project Rise’s bid had been timely, it would not have merited serious consideration,” wrote Skydance’s attorneys at Latham & Watkins LLP. “Most notably, Project Rise has never demonstrated that it has the necessary financing.”
In an emailed response to Bloomberg News on Tuesday, Project Rise said “the attack by Skydance is outrageous and an effort to deflect from the real issue here.” The group said its offer was superior to Skydance and would benefit shareholders.
“We have the financial commitments to complete a transaction with Paramount Global,” Project Rise said. “As for Skydance’s specific allegations, we just received them, and we will be responding in detail shortly.”
Paramount, the owner of CBS and other networks, is seeking to complete an $8 billion merger with Skydance, which is led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison. New York City’s public pension funds sued in February to invalidate the Skydance deal and force Paramount to consider Project Rise’s $13.5 billion bid.
Project Rise has said it discussed a deal in August with a special committee of Paramount directors overseeing offers for the company. Paramount said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in January that the committee hadn’t discussed the financial terms of the bid and told Project Rise it needed to submit its offer before the August expiration of a period for considering other bids.
Attorneys for Project Rise raised concerns about the Paramount deal in a March 5 letter to the FCC. Among other issues, it said that Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. would be an investor in the new company via its Skydance interest and would be in a position to influence US media.
“Any insinuation that a great and deeply patriotic American family, the Ellisons, will be swayed by Communist influences is offensive,” Skydance’s lawyers said in their letter to the FCC.
Separately, CBS asked the FCC in a March 7 filing to dismiss a complaint registered by the nonprofit Center for American Rights over how 60 Minutes edited an interview with then presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The network said a finding against CBS would violate the First Amendment right to free speech, as well as the commission’s own precedent.
The 60 Minutes interview is also the subject of a $20 billion lawsuit against the network by President Donald Trump.
(Adds Project Rise FCC letter in eighth paragraph. An earlier version corrected timing of response in fourth paragraph.)
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