(Reuters) -Paramount Skydance ( PSKY ) on Thursday named Makan Delrahim, a former senior U.S. antitrust official, as its chief legal officer, amid preparations for a bid for Warner Bros Discovery ( WBD ).

Delrahim, a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, was part of the legal firm that advised Skydance Media throughout its long-drawn merger process with Paramount.

He was chosen by U.S. President Donald Trump in September 2017 to be the top antitrust regulator. Delrahim testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel in 2019 about the use of antitrust laws to investigate tech giants such as Google.

He also oversaw the DOJ's unsuccessful bid to block AT&T's ( T ) acquisition of Time Warner in 2018. Trump, who was president at the time, opposed the deal because he saw it as helping Time Warner's CNN unit.

Delrahim stepped down from his position in early 2021, before Joe Biden took office as the president. Since then, he has been a partner at the law firm Latham & Watkins.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)