Three top US law firms are advising as Netflix agrees to buy Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), in a transaction valued at nearly $83bn – one of the biggest deals of 2025.
Skadden is advising Netflix on the deal, while Debevoise & Plimpton and Wachtell are acting as legal counsel to WBD.
The cash and stock transaction values WBD at $27.75 per share.
The Skadden team is being led by M&A partners Kenton King and Sonia Nijjar fom the Palo Alto office and Lauren Kramer in New York. Washington DC partners are advising on antitrust matters, including antitrust/competition department head Steven Sunshine and partner Joseph Rancour.
Also involved are Los Angeles banking partner Leila Sayegh, capital markets partner Michelle Gasaway in Los Angeles and Houston, labour and employment partner Ryne Posey in Los Angeles and Palo Alto, and Palo Alto-based West Coast executive compensation and benefits practice head Page Griffin.
Palo Alto partner Ken Kumayana is advising on IP and technology matters, while West Coast tax group head Nathan Giesselman, also in Palo Alto, is advising on tax.
The Debevoise team advising WBD is led by New York M&A partners Jonathan Levitsky, Gordon Moodie, Katherine Durnan Taylor, and Erik Andrén.
Several other New York partners are also supporting on the deal, including M&A partners John Love, Jeffrey Rosen, and William Regner, finance partners Jeffrey Ross and Ramya Tiller, capital markets partners Matthew Kaplan and Benjamin Pedersen, tax partners Peter Schuur and Erin Cleary, and IP and technology transactions partner Henry Lebowitz.
Executive compensation partner Simone Hicks is also advising on the deal, from the firm’s Washington DC office.
Debevoise previously advised WBD on its strategic alternatives review in 2025, which included handling the ongoing separation of WBD and Discovery Global, which is set to become a publicly traded company by Q3 of 2026.
Of the partners advising WBD on the Netflix acquisition, nine were also on the team that advised on the strategic alternatives review: Kaplan, Schuur, Ross, Pedersen, Levitsky, Durnan Taylor, Andrén, Tiller, and Hicks.
The firm also handled a €1.5bn senior notes offering for WBD in 2024. Kaplan and Pedersen also led this deal.
Wachtell has also worked for WBD in the past, including on its separation from Discovery Global in October this year.
Meanwhile, Skadden worked with Netflix when it acquired The Roald Dahl Story Company in September 2021, which was reportedly valued at over £500m.
Netflix will acquire WBD’s film and television studios, as well as streaming services HBO and HBO Max. The deal will give the streaming giant control over the rights to franchises including Harry Potter and Batman.
Paramount and Comcast were also reported to be interested in WBD, after it announced its split from Discovery Global this July.
The transaction is expected to close in 12-18 months, after Discovery Global completes its transition to become publicly traded.
