Kabel Deutschland has started proceedings at the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf against the Bundeskartellamt.
According to a report by Reuters, the operator wants to rescue its €600 million deal to acquire the country’s third largest cable network, Tele Columbus.
A spokesperson for the German monopoly commission said that they are confident their ruling on the merger will stand up in court.
The Kartellamt ruled that KDG has to sell most of the Tele Columbus assets in the Eastern part of the country.
Tele Columbus has 1.6 million TV customers, of which three-quarters are in the East. If the deal should go ahead, the housing associations would have no alternative but to get their signals from KDG.
At the moment, Kabel Deutschland serves 8.5 million homes in 13 states with television, while the country’s second biggest operator Unitymedia/Kabel BW has 6.7 million customers in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen and Baden-Württemberg.
