Meijer / Kroger / Albertsons Employer Antitrust No-Hire Conspiracy Litigation

This class action lawsuit was filed in 2024 by grocery store employees who alleged that Kroger and Albertsons — the two largest supermarket chains in the United States — entered into an illegal no-hire and no-solicitation agreement during the pendency of their proposed $25 billion merger. Workers claim that by agreeing not to recruit or hire each other's employees, the companies effectively eliminated a key source of competitive wage pressure, preventing workers from leveraging competing job offers to secure better pay and benefits. Such agreements have been increasingly scrutinized by the Department of Justice and the FTC as per se violations of federal antitrust law.

The case follows the FTC's successful move to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger in late 2024 on separate grounds. Plaintiffs argue that even if the merger itself was abandoned, the alleged labor market allocation agreement caused real harm to hundreds of thousands of grocery workers across the country during the years the agreement was in effect. The lawsuit seeks damages equal to the wages and benefits workers allegedly lost as a direct result of suppressed competition for their labor, as well as injunctive relief to prevent similar conduct in future merger negotiations.