AOL today announced that Time Warner's CFO, Joseph Ripp, will become its own CFO, once the two companies' merger becomes complete.

There's confidence for you. The $135 billion merger may have been given the go-ahead by the European Commission's anti-trust regulators, but it still has to pass muster with the US Federal Trade Commission.

FTC source told Reuters that there are unlikely to be any major problems with the merger, provided AOL and Time Warner guarantee not to block access unfairly to their online and cable networks, to both content providers and ISPs. Both have already said that rivals will be given access, but their competitors have claimed that the AOL-Time Warner Ts&Cs put too many obstacles in their path. They want the FTC to insist that AOL and Time Warner modify their conditions.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission has to decide whether to allow AOL access to Time Warner's broadcast licences. The FCC is waiting to see what the FTC rules before coming to a conclusion of its own. ®

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