If Robert Maxwell's bid were to succeed, the $1.7 billion deal would be the biggest in a recent string of trans-Atlantic mergers in publishing.

A18 Pentagon Pushing Mergers The Pentagon is pursuing a policy encouraging trans-Atlantic mergers in the military industry, a significant turnaround in policy.

But industry executives predict it will be a long while before Mr. Seifert pulls off such a trans-Atlantic merger.

Differing national views of how to run a business did in what would have been the biggest trans-Atlantic merger in history prior to this week's agreement between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler.

Industry executives wonder whether the deal could become another troubled trans-Atlantic merger, mired by fiscal and cultural issues, like the German company Daimler-Benz's acquisition of Chrysler.

Others, however, like Mr. Bower of Altman Weil, say that further trans-Atlantic mergers may take a while to come.

The measures also would clear the way for trans-Atlantic military mergers, which Western European officials and industrialists have long sought in order to gain access to the lucrative American market.

Even as the dispute was resolved, other trans-Atlantic mergers and alliances were being weighed.

That came on the heels of a three-way, trans-Atlantic merger to unite Canadian, Swiss and French aluminum makers into a giant competitor to Alcoa.

Tension between the American unit and the German executives who control DaimlerChrysler has bedeviled the trans-Atlantic merger.