“States also issued their own investigative demands, interviewed witnesses in the industry, attended FTC investigative hearings, spoke to consumers and grocers, and conducted market research,” the lawyers told Nelson.
In 2024, the FTC sued, with Arizona and other states joining in and incurring more costs, the state officials said.
Ultimately, federal and state judges issued an order enjoining the $24.6 billion merger. The chains ultimately gave up and remain separate.
None of that, the state attorneys general say, excuses the two chains from reimbursing them for all of their legal fees and costs investigating, separate from the FTC, which state laws could be violated with a merger.
“Each of the states spent a significant amount of time investigating and prosecuting their opposition to the proposed merger,” they told the judge. “The hours for both investigating and prosecuting the states’ antitrust claims for injunctive relief are recoverable.”
Mayes said at the time that her office was reviewing things like whether the combination would enable the surviving entity to drive up prices in Arizona, whether stores would close, and how it would affect the 35,000 Arizonans working for both companies. She held a series of town halls across the state to hear from residents on how the merger would affect them and their communities.
The attorneys pursuing the legal fees estimated in the court documents that the eight states and the District of Columbia, separate from the FTC, spent a total of about 15,000 hours involving 45 attorneys, 16 paralegals and other support staff.
They said the $774 an hour they want for lawyers is reasonable.
“The proposed merger between Albertsons and Kroger represented a significant threat to the competitive market for grocery stores that is fundamental to maintaining lower costs for food,” lawyers for the states told the judge.
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