Claudia Higgins Discusses How the Proposed Dollar Store Merger Could Survive Antitrust Scrutiny in Bloomberg
As seen in Bloomberg’s “Dollar General’s Family Dollar Campaign Said to Hang on Wal-Mart”
Bloomberg reports that Wal-Mart may play a role in Dollar General Corp.’s proposed purchase of Family Dollar Stores Inc. While Family Dollar has said that Dollar General’s proposal will be subject to scrutiny from antitrust regulators, Dollar General has responded with data showing that its buyers shop at a broad spectrum of competitors, particularly Wal-Mart. Because of this, Dollar General studies a wide range of retail rivals when setting its prices. As a result, any merger between Dollar General and Family Dollar could be argued as providing a counterweight to the dominance of Wal-Mart in the discount retail world.
According to Kaye Scholer Antitrust Partner Claudia Higgins, “There are ways to get enough divestitures done to make the Dollar General deal feasible.” She continued, “The best-case scenario for them would be that in most locations, Dollar General is setting its own prices based not only on Family Dollar and Dollar Tree, but also Wal-Mart and other stores.”