‘This is bad for shoppers’: Washington AG moves to block Kroger-Albertsons merger

KING COUNTY, Wash. — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is suing to stop a proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons.

Ferguson filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court on Tuesday, claiming that allowing the state’s two biggest grocery chains to merge “will severely limit shopping options for consumers and eliminate vital competition that keeps grocery prices low.”

“This merger is bad for Washington shoppers and workers,” Ferguson said in a news release. “Free enterprise is built on companies competing, and that competition benefits consumers.”

“Shoppers will have fewer choices and less competition, and, without a competitive marketplace, they will pay higher prices at the grocery store,” he continued. “That’s not right, and this lawsuit seeks to stop this harmful merger.”

The two companies released a statement of their own on Tuesday sharing that they “remain in active and ongoing dialogue with the Federal Trade Commission and individual state Attorneys General” over the proposed merger. They assert that the merger will actually lower prices and provide more choices for customers.

Barring any legal action to prevent it, they expect to close the deal sometime in the first half of the fiscal year.

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