Cerberus, a US private equity firm, has cleared a crucial hurdle in its $14bn (€11.05bn) bid to buy General Motors' financing division, GMAC, after a US pension agency ruled that it would not have to have pay the company's pension liabilities.

The decision by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation not to impose liability on the purchasers on account of the sale and not to take action to terminate GM's pension plan "removes one of the two main closing conditions" for the deal, according to a research note released by Dresdner Kleinwort.