By Lisa Burroughes, 23 March 2000 11:36
NEWS Cable operator, NTL, has received a green light by the UK Competition Commission (CC) for its £8.2bn merger with Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC). Commission secretary Stephen Byers said today he doesn't expect competition in the pay-TV or telecoms arena to be adversely affected by the merger of the market's second and third-largest players. It's more likely to increase competition with the number one in the market British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), he said. NTL's purchase of CWC was a blow to rival Telewest which found itself frozen out of last stage negotiations weeks before the NTL agreement was made in July last year. However, NTL, which has a growing corporate telecoms user base, is still not in the clear: in a separate inquiry, the DTI is yet to give clearance to France Telecom taking a 25 per cent stake in NTL for £2.8bn.
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