RWE AG, Germany's second-largest utility, agreed to sell its gas-transmission network in the country within two years in a bid to end an antitrust case by the European Union.
RWE's supervisory board backed the plan, the Essen, Germany-based company said in a statement last Saturday on its Website. Agreement by the board of RWE Energy is still outstanding, Julia Scharlemann, a spokeswoman for the company, said by telephone with Bloomberg News.
The European Commission, the EU's regulator, said last Wednesday it's conducting negotiations with RWE "to address antitrust concerns" raised last year regarding the company's transmission system operator. The commission said in May 2007 that it was investigating RWE for erecting "unjustified obstacles" to rivals' access to the regional wholesale gas market in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
"RWE is still convinced that it has complied with the legal requirements in the gas business," it said in a statement last Saturday.
"The intended agreement is not an acknowledgement of guilt," the company, however, pointed out.