Albertsons wants Kroger to pay it “billions” for fumbling their merger deal

Albertsons filed a lawsuit against Kroger less than 24 hours after a federal judge scrapped their merger plan, accusing it of not doing enough to make sure the $24.6 billion deal went through.

In a decision filed Tuesday, an Oregon federal judge ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission, which argued that the merger between the two largest grocery chains in the country would be anticompetitive and hurt consumers. That ruling means millions of dollars down the drain for the two grocery giants, and Albertsons is now arguing that it’s all Kroger’s fault and it needs to pay up.

Tom Moriarty, Albertsons’ top lawyer, said in a Tuesday statement that it filed a lawsuit in Delaware Court of Chancery seeking “billions of dollars in damages from Kroger to make Albertsons and its shareholders whole.” That includes the $600 million break fee, the hundreds of millions its spent on the deal, “along with the extended period of unnecessary limbo Albertsons endured as a result of Kroger’s actions.”

According to Moriarty, Kroger “acted in its own financial self-interest” in part by not agreeing to divest more of its assets to appease regulators.