A German court has blocked Liberty Global’s attempted $4.25 billion purchase of the country’s third largest cable company on antitrust and anti-competition grounds.

John Malone’s European cable conglomerate already owns UnityMedia, but has been turned away from acquiring Kabel Baden-Wuerttemberg on convincing evidence that the combination of the two cable operators would be grossly anti-competitive and violates German antitrust laws.

Liberty Global is hurrying to the German federal court to overturn the regional judge’s decision. If it cannot, it will have to unwind the merger between Kabel BW and UnityMedia.

The head complainant against Malone’s cable consolidation plan is the German telephone conglomerate Deutsche Telekom. Liberty Global’s investors hoped consolidating the German cable systems would lead to higher prices and revenue for the combined cable operation, as well as reduced costs. Liberty has similar plans to spark a renewed wave of cable consolidation in the American cable market.

Deutsche Telekom’s victory has emboldened the German phone company to consider filing a formal challenge to Vodafone’s separate $10.2 billion purchase of Germany’s largest cable company — Kabel Deutschland, on similar grounds.