Alaska AG Tregarrick Taylor needs to end his lethargy on Fred Meyer/Safeway plan to end competition
The claim that the $25 billion corporate merger of the companies that own Fred Meyer and Safeway will lead to more choices, higher employee wages and lower costs for consumers is laughable for Alaskans.
Kroger and Albertson’s promise they will “Unite Around Kroger's Purpose to Feed the Human Spirit,” and provide a “premier omnichannel experience,” claims that could have come from Don Draper’s boozy office on “Mad Men.”
Kroger feeds the human spirit in Alaska with a premier omninchannel experience under the Fred Meyer brand. Albertsons does the same with Safeway.
The proposed merger would reduce competition, lead to higher prices and eliminate jobs in Alaska.
The Anchorage Daily News quoted an antitrust expert from the University of Washington saying that the companies will probably have to spin off some stores in Alaska to get this approved by federal regulators and the courts.
“For the merger to happen, stores that are divested to other companies must be able to compete as robustly as they did before the merger,” the Daily News said, paraphrasing comments from Doug Ross form the UW School of Law.
But would a new spinoff have the market power to survive? That issue needs a serious examination by Alaska.
Attorneys general in Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, California and the District of Columbia are sounding the alarm, but Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick “Treg” Taylor has refused to speak up.
The companies signed a deal saying that nearly all of the cash available to Albertsons, $4 billion, is to be paid to stockholders. The attorneys general say this may be a plan to make Albertsons so weak that Kroger will be able to claim it is a failing business. Their analysis sounds plausible.
A Washington lawsuit says Albertsons needs $10 billion to operate for a year and a $4 billion payment “will cripple Albertsons’ ability to operate its stores and meaningfully compete with Kroger during the time before the deal closes and leave it in a weakened state if the deal subsequently falls apart.”
Anchorage legislators Reps. Zach Fields and Ivy Spohnholz have written to the Federal Trade Commission about the threat to Alaska, asking to stop the merger.
Alaska AG Taylor needs to end his lethargy and do something to protect the interests of Alaskans, following the lead of other states. This is an urgent matter, far more important than the Dunleavy adminstration’s pile of pointless federal lawsuits promoted by Taylor.
• A retired Fairbanks lawyer, the tireless force behind the great Wickersham’s Conscience blog, weighs in on the 2022 election results in Alaska, the latest defeat for Sarah Palin, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and more.
“The world would be a slightly better place if Palin never, ever again ran for public office. Ranked voting gets some credit for both Palin losses, but most of the credit goes to Palin herself,” says W.C.
“Lisa Murkowski was elected to another six year term in the U.S. Senate. She defeated carpetbagger Kelly Tsbibaka handily, 54% to 46%. Donald Trump made a special effort to defeat Murkowski, who voted to impeach Trump in the second impeachment proceeding. Ranked voting elected Murkowski; without it, she would have lost to Tshibaka in the former Republican closed primary system, following Murkowski’s excommunication from the Alaska Republican Party. Maybe she could have won again in a second write-in campaign. WC doubts it. Murkowski is a much better U.S. Senator than her father, even if her inconsistency on important issues can be maddening. Perhaps she and Rep. Mary Peltola can set a new standard for bipartisanship in Congress,” WC writes.