The sale of Battle Ground’s Albertsons and Safeway has been halted following the termination of the grocery story merger agreement between Safeway and Kroger.
Albertsons announced the termination of its merger agreement with Kroger on Wednesday, Dec. 11, after the U.S. District Court in Oregon and the state of Washington King County Superior Court issued injunctions on the proposed merger.
Kroger and Albertsons represent 21.5% of the state’s total grocery stores, with a combined 337 stores in Washington, a press release by Sen. Maria Cantwell stated.
"The Courts found what we have seen in Washington state: Large-scale grocery store mergers like this one are more likely to raise grocery prices than provide any real benefits to shoppers. And right now we need to keep taking steps to lower costs," Cantwell said in the release.
Kroger and Albertsons had initially planned to sell stores nationwide to ease antitrust concerns. The divestiture would have resulted in the sale of the Albertsons, at 2108 W. Main St., Battle Ground, and Safeway, 904 W. Main St., Battle Ground, to C&S Wholesale Grocers, according to a July press release.
“Given the recent federal and state court decisions to block our proposed merger with Kroger, we have made the difficult decision to terminate the merger agreement. We are deeply disappointed in the courts’ decisions,” Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran stated in a press release.
Following the termination of the merger agreement, Albertsons filed a lawsuit against Kroger for breaching the merger agreement.
“Kroger willfully breached the Merger Agreement in several key ways, including by repeatedly refusing to divest assets necessary for antitrust approval, ignoring regulators’ feedback, rejecting stronger divestiture buyers and failing to cooperate with Albertsons,” an Albertsons press release stated.
Kroger responded to the Albertsons lawsuit in a press release on Dec. 11.
“Kroger refutes these allegations in the strongest possible terms, especially in light of Albertsons' repeated intentional material breaches and interference throughout the merger process, which we will prove in court,” the Kroger press release stated.
