The proposed merger between supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons floundered on Tuesday after judges overseeing two separate cases both halted the merger.
U.S. District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the merger Tuesday after holding a three-week hearing in Portland, Oregon.
Later Tuesday, Judge Marshall Ferguson in Seattle issued a permanent injunction barring the merger in Washington after concluding that it would lessen competition in the state.
Kroger and Albertsons in 2022 proposed what would be the largest grocery store merger in U.S. history. But the Federal Trade Commission sued earlier this year, asking Nelson to block the $24.6 billion deal until an in-house administrative judge at the FTC could consider the merger’s implications.
Nelson agreed to pause the merger.
This is ridiculous, we need more competition in the grocery business, not less. The idea that one grocery giant could spend billions buying another grocery giant would be laughable if it didn’t have such grim implications. Welcome to the latter days of capitalism.
If you think food is expensive now, just waiting until the next administration allows this merger to go through.
Just think of the money they’ll save from no longer having to communicate their conspiracy price-fixing once they’re one company.
The companies said a merger would help them better compete with big retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon.
You ARE big retailers!
They’ll wait a couple years, bribe Trump’s admin and then have it pass then
They’ll wait a couple
yearsmonths, bribe Trump’s admin and then have it pass thenThey’ll wait a couple
yearsmonths, bribe Trump’s admin and then have itpassbe part of the rewritten constitution thenYeah maybe a few months is more accurate everything else is happening on such a faster time scale now
Thank. God.
So does that mean it’s permanently blocked, or just paused? Which injunction takes precedent?
at least postponed until donvict can get paid to force the deal through.
It was bad enough when Safeway and Albertson’s merged. There were major shenanigans afoot when that happened.
In order to get approval for THAT deal, Albertson’s had agreed to sell off some stores to Haggen.
That resulted in a $1B lawsuit.
iNfLaTIoN
Hurray and fuck Albertsons for destroying their last merger.
