01/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 1 March, the European Commission authorised merger plans of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, the UK subsidiaries of France Télécom (FT) and Deutsche Telekom (DT) respectively. This decision is dependent on changes to an existing network share agreement with Hutchison 3G UK (3UK), with the objective of guaranteeing the presence on the market of a sufficient number of competitors, and selling a quarter of the combined spectrum of the parties covered by the merger within the 1 800 MHz band, which is one of the three bands of frequencies currently used for mobile communications in the United Kingdom. In light of these commitments, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has withdrawn its request for the case to be put to the scrutiny of the UK competition authorities. (L.C./transl.fl)