SEATTLE — Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons, two of the nation’s largest supermarket chains.
In the lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court, Ferguson argued that the $25 billion deal would hurt consumers and raise prices, The Seattle Times reported. Kroger and Albertsons have more than 300 locations in the state and account for more than half of grocery store sales, according to the lawsuit.
“This merger is bad for Washington shoppers and workers,” Ferguson said in a news release Monday. “Shoppers will have less choice and less competition, and without a competitive market they will pay higher prices at the supermarket.”
Kroger, which owns QFC and Fred Meyer and is based in Cincinnati, wants to acquire Albertsons, which owns Safeway and Haggen and is based in Boise, Idaho.
In a statement Monday, Kroger said it was delaying the timeline for closing the deal due to ongoing dialogue with regulators, including the attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission. It now expects the closing could occur in the first half of the fiscal year, which ends in mid-August.
“While this is longer than we originally thought, we knew it was a possibility and … we took such potential timing into account,” the statement said.
The company claimed the merger would bring lower prices to consumers.
Ferguson’s lawsuit was approved by United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 3000, which represents Kroger and Albertsons employees in Washington, Northeast Oregon and Northern Idaho, The Seattle Times reported.
“Workers, shoppers and our communities must prevent this proposed mega-merger from happening,” Yasmin Ashur, a union member who works at an Albertsons supermarket, said in a union statement Monday.
Last year, in an effort to clear a path for a merger, Kroger and Albertsons announced plans to sell more than 400 stores and other assets to C.&S Wholesale Grocers, a grocery wholesaler, amid concerns about market dominance.
Kroger and Albertsons agreed to merge in 2022. The supermarket chains say they need to merge to compete with Walmart, Amazon and other major companies that have entered the grocery business.