FRANKFURT, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Liberty Global's German unit has reached an agreement with two companies whoobjected its 3 billion euro ($3.43 billion) purchase of cableprovider KabelBW, the company said in a statement on Friday.
A regional court in Duesseldorf in 2013 ruled that thecartel office must re-examine the case to either block it orforce the firms to offer more concessions to protect competitionin the cable television market.
The ruling ultimately could have lead to the unwinding of amerger that bolstered Germany's second-largest cable operatorUnitymedia, owned by Liberty Global, in 2012.
Germany's biggest telecoms group Deutsche Telekom and local cable operator NetCologne had challenged the approval.Deutsche Telekom has been hard hit by the success of UnitymediaKabelBW and Kabel Deutschland, which is now part ofVodafone.
Both cable companies have snatched customers fromestablished telecoms players such as Deutsche Telekom, withtheir upgraded networks offering home and office Internet atspeeds that are often five times faster.
Unitymedia said on Friday that two companies have withdrawntheir objections against the deal and that the agreement wasapproved by the German competition watchdog. Unitymedia did notgive any details about the agreement.
The cartel office had approved the acquisition at the end of2011 only after imposing far-reaching remedies because Libertyalready owned Germany's second-largest cable operatorUnityMedia, which then absorbed KabelBW.
Sources told Reuters last year that pressure fromcompetition regulators could prompt Liberty Global to abandonGermany if it can no longer pursue its growth ambitions inEurope's biggest cable market. ($1 = 0.8748 euros) (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; editing by Thomas Atkins)