PORTLAND, Ore. — The federal government urged a U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday to temporarily prevent a proposed mergerLawyers for the Federal Trade Commission and for the supermarket chains gave their closing arguments at the end of a three-week hearing on the commission’s request for a preliminary injunction to
U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson must now decide whether to grant the injunction while the FTC’s anti-trust complaint goes goes before an in-house administrative law judge. Nelson said she would work “expeditiously” on her decision, but she didn’t say when she would rule.in U.S. history in 2022.
But Musser said the judge should be skeptical about the companies’ promises, which aren’t legally binding. Kroger and Albertsons’ executives might be well-intentioned, she said, but they will face pressure to report profits and keep prices high. In seeking to stop the merger, the FTC and labor union leaders have argued that workers’ wages and benefits would decline if Kroger and Albertsons no longer competed with each other. They also expressed concern that potential store closures could create so-called food and pharmacy “deserts” for consumers.