THE Minister for Enterprise and Employment Mr Bruton has announced that he has accepted the unanimous conclusion of the Competition Authority that the proposed acquisition by Blockbuster Entertainment of Xtra vision be allowed to proceed. The Competition Authority's report on the takeover is being published as required by legislation, with confidential or commercially sensitive material deleted.

The authority decided that the proposed transaction would have little or no effect on competition in the market for video rentals.

It examined the common ownership between Blockbuster, which is wholly owned by Viacom, on the one hand and CIC, a distributor of videos in the Irish market, which is 50 per cent owned by Viacom. But the authority decided that this was unlikely to cause a competitiveness problem.