Kroger has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, seeking to block the regulator from reviewing the supermarket chain’s controversial proposed $25 billion merger with Albertsons. According to a Monday release from the company, Kroger filed a motion for preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio, against the FTC’s administrative proceeding challenging the deal.
The motion alleges the FTC is violating Constitutional practices “because the Administrative Law Judge presiding over the administrative proceeding is not removable by the President of the United States,” and because the regulator is “seeking to adjudicate Kroger's private rights to contract with another private party administratively through the Executive Branch rather than in the independent Judicial Branch.”
