The Federal Trade Commission has signaled it has no antitrust issues with Time Warner Cable's purchase of Insight Communications or with Liberty Media's stake in Barnes & Noble.
That came in an "early termination" list issued by the agency. Deals above a certain threshhold price have to be submitted for antitrust review. Companies also file for early termination of that review, which will be granted if there are no antitrust issues. The FTC's granting of that request signals that neither it nor Justice plans to take any enforcement action against the sale.
Time Warner in August entered into a definitive merger agreement to purchase Insight Communications for $3 billion in cash.
In other early termination news, the FTC and Justice are OK with Liberty Media's purchase of a stake in bookseller Barnes & Noble, the FTC said Monday.
At about the same time that TWC was striking the deal for Insight, Liberty Media agreed to purchase $204 million of Barnes & Noble preferred stock or approximately 17% of the company. Liberty dropped an earler $1 billion bid in May.
