DENVER — Closing statements in the Colorado trial over what could be the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history began on Thursday.
After weeks of back and forth between the State of Colorado, Kroger and Albertson's, closing statements took up the entire day.
The attorney for the state laid out its beliefs during closing statements, saying a merger between Kroger and Albertson's would hurt King Soopers and Safeway customers and employees.
They added the proposed selling of some stores to C&S, simply isn't good enough.
"We cannot afford to let them take over 91 stories in Colorado and presently run by one of the most successful retail companies in the country," the state's attorney said. "C&S in Colorado, is an objectively smaller and worse version of Albertson's that exists today."
As part of the proposed merger, 91 grocery stores in Colorado would be sold to C&S.
The state also saying it believes Kroger wants this merger to go through to get rid of competition, it believes C&S doesn't have the experience to take on a sale of this size.
"They get to take Albertson's out of the market and replace it with a far inferior competitive it's also really easy for the Albertson's executives to be optimistic about this," the state's attorney said. "They all have golden parachutes."
However, attorney's representing Kroger said that is not true. They pointed out they believe this merger would help sustain competition against other food markets.
"It has also not been remotely challenged that Kroger and Albertson's together can be a more effective competitor against Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Target, legal and all of it," said the attorney representing Kroger.
The attorney representing Albertson's arguing the same thing, saying the potential merger wouldn't hurt anyone and healthy competition would be able to continue if the merger were to go through.
"This is a case about competition, and the key question is, what will change in terms of competition in Colorado after this furniture? And the answer is virtually nothing," said the Albertson's attorney.
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