{"id":29210,"date":"2024-02-14T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-to-stop-kroger-albertsons-merger\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T23:15:00","slug":"colorado-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-to-stop-kroger-albertsons-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-to-stop-kroger-albertsons-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Attorney General files lawsuit to stop Kroger-Albertsons merger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shoppers
Shoppers leave a City Market store in Ca\u00f1on City in 2023. (Matt Bloom\/CPR News file)<\/span>Matt Bloom\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a press conference on Wednesday that a lawsuit to block the merger was filed after a yearlong investigation including 19 town hall meetings across the state. He said the merger between two of the state\u2019s largest supermarket chains would eliminate head-to-head competition.<\/p>\n

Kroger operates 148 King Soopers and City Market stores in Colorado and is the largest chain in the state. Albertsons has 105 Safeway and Albertsons stores and is the state\u2019s third-largest grocery chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeking to prevent this merger from taking place, and we are pursuing civil penalties and injunctive relief in connection with another violation of Colorado\u2019s antitrust laws,\u201d Weiser said.<\/p>\n

Kroger and Albertsons announced the proposed merger in 2022. The AG\u2019s investigation found that the two chains went into a no-poach agreement \u2013 a deal between competitors not to employ each other\u2019s employees. Weiser referenced last year\u2019s King Soopers strike and said Kroger went into the agreement about concerns of losing employees during the 10-day standoff. The two had also planned to sell more than 50 stores as part of the merger\u2019s divestiture plan.<\/p>\n

In addition to permanently blocking the merger, the lawsuit also seeks $1 million in civil penalties over the no-poach deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe no-poach and non-solicitation is independent of this merger,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cBut the fact that the company entered into such agreements and thought they could get away with it underscores why competition matters to consumers, to workers, to farmers, and to our communities. It also demonstrates why it\u2019s so important that we have vigilant antitrust enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a statement from the AG\u2019s office, the potential merger would affect smaller communities like Gunnison, where there is a City Market and Safeway. If the merger moves forward, Kroger would monopolize the local market and limit grocery options for residents. The nearest non-Kroger store would be more than 60 miles away in Salida or Montrose.<\/p>\n

Weiser said some communities like Pueblo still feel the effects of the 2015 Albertsons and Safeway merger.<\/p>\n

\u201cPueblo may be less affected. Smaller communities like Gunnison, like Cortez, are ones that are especially nervous,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cThose communities would see a consolidation of supply chains in a way that will be harder for them to deal with than other communities \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit asks Denver District Court to permanently block the merger. This is the second state lawsuit filed to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger. Washington state filed a similar lawsuit in January.<\/p>\n

UFCW Local 7, the union representative for King Soopers, City Market, Albertsons and Safeway workers in Colorado, released a statement applauding Weiser\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

Local 7 President Kim Cordova said she hopes other states and the Federal Trade Commission will get involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been opposing the merger because of all of these reasons, but there\u2019s also a monopoly part of this where we represent food processing, packing, and those type of workers in the industry that would be under the thumb of a giant Kroger who\u2019s going to be able to set prices, which then can hurt our workers that work in those industries as well,\u201d she said. \u201cSo this merger is only good for executives and Wall Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local 7 represents 18,000 workers at Kroger and Albertsons stores in Colorado and Wyoming. Cordova said a merger could further devastate communities and affect health care and pension plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s other small businesses that depend on these stores because they\u2019re an anchor. And so, we see empty shopping centers now,\u201d she said. \u201cWe see pockets around Colorado where consumers don\u2019t have a place to buy fresh food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cordova said Local 7 will watch closely as the lawsuit progresses.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shoppers leave a City Market store in Ca\u00f1on City in 2023. (Matt Bloom\/CPR News file)Matt Bloom\/CPR News Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a press conference on Wednesday that a lawsuit to block the merger was filed after a yearlong investigation including 19 town hall meetings across the state. He said the merger between two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,120,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-colorado","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29210"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}