New Delhi, June 10 -- The fight over Hollywood's biggest merger has reached the stage where the two most powerful companies in streaming are describing each other to the Justice Department in the language of arson.

these claims are absurd, it said, we walked away from this deal months ago, and we are focused on our own business, not theirs.

A letter war between Netflix and Paramount is itself a measure of the stakes. Whoever ends up owning Warner's century of film, HBO and the Max platform reshapes the economics of streaming for everyone, and both companies know that the most effective antitrust argument is often about the arguer. By framing opposition to the deal as a rival's sabotage, Paramount is inviting regulators to apply the olde...