Metro is distributed in the mornings

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) investigated the exclusive deal between Transport for London (TfL) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).

It produces the morning free sheet Metro and paid for Evening Standard but the OFT said the deal prevented other publishers distributing their papers.

ANL has now given up its rights and TfL has invited bids from other publishers.

Under the agreement with the OFT, Associated Newspapers has also offered to give up its rights to the afternoon distribution slots.

We are confident that Metro will continue to go from strength to strength ANL's managing director Kevin Beatty

The group recently launched Standard Lite, a free slimline edition of the Evening Standard distributed at lunchtime.

London mayor Ken Livingstone said: "This is great news for Londoners.

"I have always been confident that the OFT would share our view that the exclusive distribution of the Metro is uncompetitive and I am pleased that the investigation has reached a conclusion.

"Of course, the exclusivity for morning distribution has not been lifted and we will reserve our right to press for this to be removed.

"We are now one step closer to offering Londoners the choice of a free afternoon newspaper on the Tube."

Following the OFT's announcement, a spokesman for TfL said: "We believe that Londoners will welcome this new product and that a contract will subsequently be of significant interest to prospective bidders."

ANL said it welcomed the announcement "which involves no findings being made against Associated Newspapers".

The publishing group's managing director Kevin Beatty added: "We passionately believe that the success of Metro is due to its unrivalled editorial approach, which is so appreciated by its audience and advertisers and not by the way it is distributed.

"We are confident that Metro will continue to go from strength to strength."