They’re reading their D&O policies and checking them twice.
That’s the word from inside Paramount, whose board and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone are struggling to reach a decision about settling a $20 billion lawsuit brought by President Trump over a controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.
They fear the Paramount board’s so-called Directors and Officers liability insurance, commonly known as D&O, wouldn’t cover bribery – a charge they could be exposed to if they give into Trump’s demands, On The Money has learned.
As this column has reported, Redstone is willing to pay Trump up to $50 million to settle the case that comes as Trump’s own Federal Communications Commission is holding up approval of her plan to sell Paramount and its CBS news subsidiary to independent film company Skydance.
Her decision could come any day now, and Trump is said to be receptive to the deal. He recently settled a libel suit with ABC, forcing Bob Iger, who runs the network’s parent company Disney, to fork over $16 million.
But Disney and ABC aren’t in the middle of a merger, and the Paramount payment could be seen as a bribe to curry favor with the Trump administration and facilitate the Skydance deal, media executives tell On The Money.
Compounding the problem for the board and Redstone is that D&O insurance typically doesn’t cover bribery. There is a possibility of civil suits brought by shareholders, a possible criminal investigation mounted by a Trump-hating prosecutor, and – if the Democrats take the House and/or the Senate in the midterms – endless congressional hearings.
“I feel badly for her,” one top media CEO with direct knowledge of the matter said of Redstone. “She’s really in a tough spot.”
“They’re really worried that they could face civil or even criminal charges and their insurance doesn’t cover the legal expense,” the executive added. “The problem is no one really thinks Trump has a good case and she would be settling to push the deal forward.”
A Redstone spokeswoman declined comment. A Trump legal adviser declined to comment.
“This lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process,” a Paramount spokesperson said in a statement. “We will abide by the legal process to defend our case.”
Of course, businesses settle with the government all the time over regulatory infractions rather than engage in a more costly legal battle. Some media executives say the difference here is that Redstone isn’t settling with the government, but a single individual who has vast control over her wealth. Already several Democratic lawmakers such as Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders have warned about the legal implications of a settlement.
Despite the hand wringing, Redstone’s decision is said to be imminent and she has told people it is her preference to settle the matter and move on with her life. The Paramount-Skydance deal is valued at $8 billion. Redstone, 71, has seen her fortune evaporate with the sharp decline in Paramount stock in recent years.
If the deal is completed, she would walk away with $2 billion, and preserve a modicum of the wealth she inherited from her dad, the late media dealmaker Sumner Redstone.
Trump filed the lawsuit against CBS last October during the heat of the 2024 presidential election, following a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris, the Democratic nominee. The lawsuit mirrors a complaint filed with the FCC by a conservative legal group that alleges that the CBS news magazine deceptively edited the interview to make Harris’s word-salad answers sound more presidential.
CBS has long been accused of left-wing bias, though the First Amendment generally provides a free-speech shield. The Trump FCC, however, is contending that CBS, which operates over public airwaves as opposed to cable, has a legal, “public interest” duty to provide unbiased news coverage particularly during a presidential election.
The FCC is holding up approving the Paramount-Skydance deal and Redstone’s much-needed access to cash as it investigates whether “60 Minutes” did indeed tilt the scales in its editing and the Trump lawsuit remains active in Texas federal court.
The conservative legal group known as the Center For American Rights says there is clear evidence of deceptive editing, pointing to the full transcript of the Harris interview that shows a long-winded, and in its view, less coherent answer to a policy question involving the war in Gaza.
“60 Minutes” denies that it has done anything wrong and says that it regularly edits interviews for time considerations. Legal experts say Trump has weak grounds to sue given 60 Minutes past practices. But the Trump suit claims the editing violates Texas business law that makes it illegal to engage in “misleading, or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce.”
In addition to her evaporating wealth, Redstone faces a steep tax bill — as much as $200 million — stemming from the ownership stake she inherited from her father after he died in 2020.
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