German cableco Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has launched an appeal against the antitrust regulator’s decision to block the takeover of Tele Columbus.
A spokesperson for KDG confirmed that the appeal had been sent to the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), which…
German cableco Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has launched an appeal against the antitrust regulator’s decision to block the takeover of Tele Columbus.
A spokesperson for KDG confirmed that the appeal had been sent to the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), which would pass on the case to the cartel court in the German city of Duesseldorf.
Spokespeople for the FCO could not be reached for comment.
The cartel office had blocked the proposed takeover earlier this month after KDG refused to further improve a set of remedies submitted to the regulator earlier.
This set of remedies included proposals to divest network assets owned by Tele Columbus in the German cities of Berlin, Dresden and Cottbus which would have reduced the size of the transaction from originally 2.1 million homes connected by approximately 20%.
But the FCO said in its prohibition decision that the proposed undertakings would have been insufficient to address anticompetitive effects of the merger of KDG with Tele Columbus.
KDG had given up hope for antitrust approval in mid February already, saying at the time that offering additional measures to get the €618m transaction approved would be “commercially not reasonable”.
The KDG spokesperson refused to give further details on the appeal.
