Republican AGs Oppose FTC’s Challenge of Kroger-Albertsons Deal

Republican attorneys general in Ohio, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia slammed the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge of Kroger & Co.’s $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons Cos. as “devoid of economic justification.”

In a friend of the court brief Friday in the US District Court for the District of Oregon, the state officials pushed for the proposed deal between grocery chains to go through, splitting with the FTC and eight mostly blue states and Washington, D.C., that claim the merger will lead to higher prices and lower wages.

“This is a case in which a federal agency is exploiting the antitrust laws ...