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Newspaper merger will not go before Competition Commission

The Office of Fair Trading has said it will not to refer Johnston Press’s acquisition of Irish newspaper group Local Press to the Competition Commission.

After investigating the merger it said there were no competition issues in local newspapers or printing, although it did raise questions over its farming titles, Farm Week and Farming Life, which are the two biggest titles of their type in Northern Ireland.

However Johnston Press has proposed to resolve this by selling Farm Week.