Pearson's acquisition of Harcourt Education in the UK has escaped a possible referral to the Competition Commission, according to the Bookseller. In a statement put out Friday, the Office of Fair Trading said it had decided, based "on the information currently available to it", not to refer the completed merger to the Competition Commission. It did not go into further detail, but added that the text of the decision would be placed on the Office of Fair Trading's web site at www.oft.gov.uk soon.

Pearson Education acquired Harcourt Education from Reed Elsevier in May for $950m. But the OFT announced in June that it was considering whether the deal would result in "a substantial lessening of competition" in the UK's educational publishing market, forcing Pearson to put its integration plans on ice