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* Deutsche Telekom, NetCologne have withdrawn objections
* CEO says payment is small and marginal
* Unitymedia says court case ends due to deal (adds Liberty settlement amount, CEO comment)
By Harro Ten Wolde and Peter Maushagen
FRANKFURT, Feb 13 (Reuters) - European cable operatorLiberty Global's German unit has reached an agreementwith two companies which objected to its 3 billion euro ($3.43billion) purchase of cable provider KabelBW, by paying them183.5 million euros.
A regional court in Duesseldorf ruled in 2013 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 led to the unwinding of amerger that bolstered Germany's second-largest cable operatorUnitymedia, owned by Liberty Global, Europe's largest cableoperator, in 2012.
Germany's biggest telecoms group Deutsche Telekom and local cable operator NetCologne had challenged the approval.
Unitymedia said on Friday that the two companies hadwithdrawn their objections against the deal. The Germancompetition regulator confirmed it had approved the settlement.
Liberty Global said in a regulatory filing with the UnitedStates Securities and Exchange Commission that it had promisedto pay Deutsche Telekom and NetCologne "an aggregate amount of183.5 million euros."
Liberty Global's Chief Executive Mike Fries told aconference call with analysts on Friday that he considered thepayment to be "small and marginal".
"We consider the payment as not material for an operationwhich has way outperformed expectations," he added.
Liberty expects that legal proceedings will be formallyterminated during the current quarter.
Shares in Liberty Global shares were trading 2.5 percenthigher at $51.05 by 1450 GMT in New York.
Deutsche Telekom has been hard hit by the success ofUnitymedia KabelBW and Kabel Deutschland, which isnow part of Vodafone.
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.
The cartel office had approved the acquisition at the end of2011 only after imposing far-reaching remedies because Libertyalready owned Unitymedia, 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 and Peter Maushagen; editing byArno Schuetze, Susan Thomas and Jane Merriman)
