Comcast’s Sky has settled a lawsuit with Warner Bros. Discovery, in which the former accused the latter of “multiple material breaches” of a 2019 deal around the co-funding and co-production of exclusive premium TV shows.
According to a new court filing, both companies have agreed to “the dismissal with prejudice of all claims in the action,” with every party bearing its own fees and costs.
Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
The suit, which was filed in September in New York federal court, argued that WBD was obligated to present Sky with at least four shows per year in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
But it said that the company “fell far short of that mark, in certain years offering barely a single qualifying series while also withholding critical, contractually required information necessary for Sky to evaluate any potential options that it did receive.”
“This misconduct has deprived Sky of its bargained-for opportunity to co-fund, co-produce, and subsequently exploit exclusively in U.K. and European territories all manner of top-end Warner content,” the complaint stated. “If all that were not enough, Warner has now even brazenly denied Sky its right to partner on Warner’s highly valuable decade-long, tentpole television series adapting J.K. Rowling’s iconic Harry Potter novels, set to premiere in 2026 or 2027. Instead, Warner has largely disregarded the parties’ agreement and sought to keep the Harry Potter content for itself so that Warner can use it as the cornerstone of the launch of its Max streaming service in Europe.”
More to come…
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