Denver judge temporarily halts Kroger-Albertsons merger

DENVER — Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen granted a preliminary injunction Thursday temporarily pausing a proposed $24.6 billion merger between Albertsons Cos. (NYSE: ACI) and Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), the parent company of Colorado-based grocery chain King Soopers. A two-week trial on the merits of the Kroger-Albertsons merger plan, which has been challenged in a lawsuit by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is now set to begin in late September.

Weiser, who is seeking to block the merger permanently, praised Luxen’s ruling and a decision by the grocery companies to wait until after the fall trial to attempt to close the merger.

“I am pleased that Kroger and Albertsons agreed to halt their plans to merge until the court rules on the state’s lawsuit to permanently block the grocery merger,” Weiser said in a prepared statement. “This is great news for shoppers, workers, farmers, and other suppliers, who can rest assured that this mega-merger will not go into effect during harvest season and while kids are headed back to school. The trial is set to begin on Sept. 30 and my office looks forward to making the case that this merger will eliminate competition and impact food prices, jobs, and consumer choice.”

The merger proposal has drawn criticism from the Federal Trade Commission and from labor leaders, including United Food & Commercial Workers Local 7, the union that represents King Soopers grocery workers across the Front Range, including in Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley.

To appease antitrust regulators, the would-be merger partners released a list of 579 Albertsons-owned stores in 19 states, including 91 in Colorado, that would be sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc., a privately held New Hampshire company that owns several grocery-store brands such as Piggly Wiggly. The divestiture list includes nearly two dozen Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado Safeway stores.

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