The Bundeskartellamt, Germany's competition authority, has granted clearance for the NOZ/mh:n media group's planned acquisition of a majority stake in the Ostfriesland Newspaper Group, based in Leer.

The Ostfriesland Newspaper Group publishes several regional daily newspapers, including the 'Ostfriesen-Zeitung', 'Ostfriesische Nachrichten', 'General-Anzeiger', and 'Borkumer Zeitung'. The NOZ/mh:n media group is known for distributing the 'Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung' in northwestern Germany and the 'Rheiderland Zeitung' in southern Ostfriesland.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, stated that while the merger could lead to significant competition issues in some regions of Ostfriesland, particularly in the Rheiderland where competition between two regional newspapers would cease, legal limits prevent the authority from blocking the merger. The affected markets did not meet the necessary revenue threshold for prohibition.

The merger assessment considered both competition for readers and advertising clients in the newspaper sector. According to the law, the Bundeskartellamt cannot prohibit a merger if the revenues in the affected markets were below 20 million euros in the previous calendar year. For newspapers, stricter rules apply, allowing prohibition at a combined market volume of five million euros, which was not reached in this case.

In the Rheiderland, the 'Ostfriesen-Zeitung' was the only competitor to the 'Rheiderland-Zeitung'. With the merger, both newspapers will belong to the same corporate group, eliminating their previous competition.

In northern Ostfriesland around the city of Norden, the 'Ostfriesischer Kurier' competes with the ZGO titles 'Ostfriesen-Zeitung' and 'Ostfriesische Nachrichten'. However, the authority did not need to determine whether this competitive relationship would remain intact after the sale of the 'Ostfriesischer Kurier' to OM-Medien, as the legal minimum revenue threshold for prohibition was not met.