Liberty curtailed by German regulators

NEWS Deutsche Telekom's (DT) cable assets will not be sold to Liberty Media, at least for as long as the agreement between the two companies stands. The ruling on the $5.5bn deal comes from the German cartel office which reckons Liberty would control too much of the cable infrastructure. Until now, the market has suffered by being widely controlled by the nation's dominant telco which has been accused of holding back multimedia internet services over cable in favour of its T-DSL offering. DT would have been hoping proceeds from the deal would go towards paying off the E65bn (£40bn) it owes. Liberty, headed up by John Malone, has until 28 February to submit a counteroffer but other parties have expressed an interest.