Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen testified the high stakes court hearing
in Portland he was trying to convince a federal judge
not to block the biggest acquisition in Kroger's history.
WCPO 9 I team reporter Dan Monk spoke with the
Bloomberg reporter who watched yesterday's testimony.
She said McMullen was friendly and unflustered.
I mean, I will say Mr.
McMullen is pretty charming.
Leah Nilan has been covering antitrust cases for more than
a decade.
He was pretty good at like giving, giving the sell
for why, for why he thinks this merger is important.
Raise your right hands.
McMullen has been selling the deal since 2022 when he
testified before the US Senate.
This merger will enhance competition in Portland.
On Wednesday, McMullen was the first witness called after the
Federal Trade Commission rested its case.
The FTC is trying to convince a federal judge that
Kroger will harm consumers and workers if it's allowed to
buy one of its largest rivals.
One point he made was when he first started out
working, the biggest grocer at the time was A&P, and
that is a grocery chain that doesn't even exist anymore.
So he has seen a lot of changes over the
years, including the rise of big discounters like Walmart and
also e-commerce, particularly with Amazon's, when the FTC pushed back
on Kroger's pledge to lower prices by $1 billion.
McMullen was ready with an answer.
While it's not legally binding, he in his view, it's
sort of like reputationally binding.
Like if we say this and then go around and
do the opposite right after the merger goes through, no
one's going to believe this anymore.
McMullen also pushed back on FTC allegations that the merger
will reduce union bargaining power when they were looking at
divestiture options.
And one of the most important things to him was
that whoever buys the kind of the stores agrees to
honor the union contracts.
Nylan said McMullen never got flustered during cross examination, but
she couldn't tell whether his testimony scored any points with
Judge Adrian Nelson.
The judge sexually instructed the witnesses that she does not
want them looking at her, that's their job is to
testify before the court.
She is very hard to get a read on.
She doesn't ask very many questions.
Judge Nelson hasn't said how long it will take her
to decide whether to grant an injunction in this case.
Kroger attorneys have said an injunction would effectively kill the
merger.
Reporting Downtown.
Dan Monk, WCPO 9 I team.