Germany's Federal Cartel Office said it will only allow DBH Buch Handels to buy 44 bookstores out of a planned 52 in Arcandor's Karstadt department stores, due to "anti-trust concerns", reports Forbes.

The Cartel Office said its examination showed that the planned purchase was "problematic from an anti-trust...

The German encyclopedia publisher Brockhaus has announced that it is to publish its reference works on the internet for free to offset falling revenues and compete with Wikipedia. The move has put into doubt future printed editions of the respected encyclopedia. The online version will be funded through advertising.

In addition, the...

The German book business is under threat from cheap German books flooding into the country from Switzerland, reports the New York Times. "Just across the border, the Swiss lately decided to permit the discounting of German books — a move that some in the book trade here fear will eventually force Germany itself to follow suit,...

Pearson is in talks to sell a 50% share of Financial Times Deutschland to magazine publisher Spiegel-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH, people familiar with the situation said.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while the value of the deal is likely to be small, selling part of the Financial Times brand would be a major symbolic move for the...