ICLE on Grocery Mergers

An October white paper authored by the International Center for Law and Economics, a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit research group whose funders include the grocery industry, noted that lawsuits to block food retail transactions are rare. The only supermarket merger litigated since California’s 1988 challenge of Lucky Stores Inc. by American Stores Co. was the $700 million purchase in 2007 of Wild Oats Markets by Whole Foods Market Inc., now part of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN).The FTC cleared Whole Foods-Wild Oats in 2009 with spinoffs.