An interesting quote from an Anheuser-Busch internal document…Details from Huffington post:
“We must slow the volume trend of High End Segment and cannot let the industry transform,” AB InBev said in internal strategy documents obtained by the Justice Department, referring to the threat posed by imports and craft beers.
More details from CNBC & Reuters:
"The proposed merger would likely increase the ability of ABI and the remaining beer firms to coordinate by eliminating an independent Modelo - which has increasingly inhibited ABI's price leadership - from the market," government lawyers wrote in the complaint.
The $20.1 billion deal would give AB InBev the half of Modelo it does not already own. AB InBev said the government's lawsuit is "inconsistent with the law, the facts and the reality of the market place."
In antitrust law, the so-called "coordinated effects" theory holds that in a highly concentrated market, competitors might coordinate their prices or other kinds of behavior either through outright collusion or implicitly. Defense lawyers say that it is an especially powerful theory when the government has credible evidence that market players could coordinate their customer strategies.
.
0 comments (click to read or post):
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment...I do moderate each comment so it may not appear immediately...and please be nice! You can also comment using Disqus (below) or even comment directly on Facebook (bottom).