Antitrust Lawyer Blog Commentary on Current Developments

Articles Tagged with whole foods

On August 23, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission cleared Amazon.com Inc.’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market Inc. without a second request investigation. As mega mergers go, this antitrust review was fast and furious.

When the deal was announced, consumer groups and politicians questioned whether the combination was anticompetitive. Even President Trump, during the campaign, had been quoted as saying “Amazon had a huge antitrust problem”.

Many others were outspoken that the deal should at the very least undergo a thorough investigation because as they saw it, Amazon was adding groceries to its mix in an effort to cement its position as the go to platform where most online commerce takes place. The argument goes that Amazon is a monopolist in online retailing (46% of online retail sales) and it was acquiring Whole Foods, an organic and premium food grocery brick & mortar retailer providing Amazon with additional infrastructure that would allow Amazon to sell and deliver groceries in more cities. Indeed, AmazonFresh is available only in a handful of cities, and doesn’t have the same range of offerings as Whole Foods. Whole Foods delivers through Instacart, but not in a number of of cities. Amazon Prime offers free delivery and Instacart’s delivery fees can add up. Therefore, the deal raised both vertical (online platform along with brick & mortar stores) and horizontal (both firms competed in the retail distribution of food) issues, but combined the merged firm was still a very small retail grocer and the addition of Whole Foods tiny share of the grocery business was trivial.

Contact Information