- Oregon AG Dan Rayfield led a nine-state coalition in filing a petition for $10.3 million in attorneys’ fees and costs against Kroger following the abandonment of its proposed $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons. Oregon’s share of the request is about $2.25 million.
- The petition follows a court ruling that the states “substantially prevailed” in their antitrust challenge, entitling them to recover litigation expenses under Section 16 of the Clayton Act.
- The states argue the request is reasonable given the scale of the merger challenge, which they say required a multistate investigation and significant litigation work alongside the FTC, including more than 15,000 hours of work, analysis of 2,537 geographic markets, and use of a shared database containing more than 19 million documents.
- In a press release, AG Rayfield said fee recovery is one way states can sustain independent antitrust work as state AGs take on consolidation cases that, in his view, federal enforcers may no longer pursue.