“Today’s win protects competition in the grocery market, which will prevent prices from rising even more,” FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar wrote in a statement shared with AFP after the injunction was granted.
The injunction makes clear, he added, “that strong, reality-based antitrust enforcement delivers real results for consumers, workers, and small businesses.”
Neither Kroger nor Albertsons immediately responded to AFP requests for comment.
In a statement, the Joe Biden administration praised the judge’s decision.
“The Kroger-Albertsons merger would have been the biggest supermarket merger in history, raising grocery prices for consumers and lowering wages for workers,” National Economic Council Deputy Director Jon Donenberg said in a statement.
“Our Administration is proud to stand up against big corporate mergers that increase prices, undermine workers, and hurt small businesses,” he added.
“The Kroger-Albertsons deal always faced an uphill battle in its bid for approval,” GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders wrote in a note to clients.
“While some of the FTC’s arguments were debatable, it operated from a position of strength”
“For both firms, it is now a case of putting this distraction behind them and going back to the drawing board,” he added.
In New Zealand, the Commerce Commission in October [refused to give clearance for Foodstuffs to merge](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/retail/foodstuffs-merger-proposal-rejected/5BS7OU2SKFF45GIUDHZTNBYFRE/) its North and South Island entities into a single national grocery company.
[Foodstuffs is appealing the decision](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/foodstuffs-to-appeal-comcom-merger-decision/2XGXNY2ZOBA63C7PRARDXZTFUQ/).
**© Agence France-Presse. Additional reporting: NZ Herald**