The DOJ's civil antitrust lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD -6%) contends Americans...

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Tony Petroski Comments (6373)
 
"Americans would pay more for beer and have fewer products to choose from if A-B and Grupo Modelo merged."

The Department of Justice is probably right. And it's great to at last be on the right side as I'm now one of "our people" in the eyes of Justice.

Now, if they could aid me in my 14th amendment fight. You see, far more than the proposed merger may harm me, state and local governments levying taxes and fees on my beer is killing me. It seems they have targeted beer drinkers for special taxes. Isn't that barred by the 14th amendment?

Why don't these amendments like the first and the second and the fourteenth ever work for my people?
31 Jan, 02:06 PM Reply Like

Chris DeMuth Jr. Comments (1797)
 
Our view was that they had around a 25% chance of avoiding this DoJ suit. Complaint appears compelling on first read through: http://1.usa.gov/WDAeQD
31 Jan, 03:20 PM Reply Like

Sean Dorn Comments (8)
 
Its idiotic to suppose they are buying Grupo Modello to kill off Corona. They want Corona to own Corona, obviously. They want to sell you your beer if you want "exotic" Corona and they want to sell you your beer if you plain old Bud. So sure its about of AB-InBev strategy of owning every flagship beer of every nation but its not about squashing choice. I don't see how owning Corona is any different from owning Stella Artois, Spaten, Franzikaner, Leffe, Hoegarden, Bass, Beck's and over 200 popular imports i.e. if this action is monopolistic why weren't all those other acquisitions? The government's argument reeks of drawing a totally arbitrary line in the sand. This merger is barely a bump in the road on the 8 lane mega-highway of the mergers InBev has already completed and the DOJ will have a hard time proving this merger is substantively than the 200+ they have already allowed.
31 Jan, 04:20 PM Reply Like

Sean Dorn Comments (8)
 
AB-InBev owns 200+ of the worlds most popular beers and is an impressive collection of the world's top flagship beers. They don't want to own Corona to eliminate Corona's competition with Bud, they want to own Corona to make money selling Corona. Just like they sell Belgium's Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Leffe and Germany's Spaten and Franzikaner. They want to expand their collection of the world's top imports. Its patently absurd to argue this move is substantively different from their ownership of the other 200+ popular imports they already own.
31 Jan, 04:20 PM Reply Like

Sean Dorn Comments (8)
 
According to Wikipedia Grupo Modelo is 63% of the Mexican beer market but the DOJ did nothing when InBev bought Brahma, whose various beers control 70% of the Brazilian market. Brazil is the 4th largest beer market in the world consuming approxiamately twice that Mexico at #6 in world consumption. Why is the straw that broke the camel's back? Because this is a merger of a beer that the DOJ has actually heard of, even though smaller in actual economic impact?
5 Feb, 01:16 PM Reply Like