Britain's competition regulator will include German discounters Aldi and Lidl and online giant Amazon in its market probe of Sainsbury's proposed takeover of Asda, boosting the deal's chances of being approved without a big sale of stores.
Last month, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced an in-depth investigation of the £7.3 billion supermarket deal.
Past probes have tended to focus on Britain's main supermarket groups. With the merger of number-two player Sainsbury's and number-three Asda set to overtake industry leader Tesco, a narrow definition of the market might have spelled trouble for the deal.
