The Federal Trade Commission has asked a federal judge to force Total Wine & More to comply with its ongoing antitrust investigation into Dallas-based Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits.
Southern Glazers, the largest wine and spirits distributor in the United States, has violated the Robinson-Patman Act and is accused of possible discriminatory practices and other unfair practices in its sales to retailers such as Total Wine. The company is currently being investigated for its involvement in unfair competition methods. Under the FTC Act.
The filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia seeks to compel Total Wine to comply with an administrative subpoena seeking documents and other information.
The FTC asked Total Wine “to determine whether Southern offers preferential prices or services to certain large chains, such as Total Wine, that it does not provide to smaller, independent retailers.” Seeking documents and information.
According to the filing, agency staff tried to work with Total Wine for months, but the retailer “unilaterally narrowed the scope” of the FTC's request and “enforced a document search of its employees' files.” “I refused.”
The FTC originally served Total Wine with the request on February 24, but Total Wine issued a partial response on April 3, according to the filing.
The FTC said that after lengthy negotiations over Total Wine's objections and staff's proposal to defer certain responses, Total Wine elected to file a motion to restrict information.
The FTC stated that “no other retailers had filed petitions to limit or invalidate their respective nearly identical claims.”
Total Wine's parent company, Retail Services and Systems, responded Monday with a statement saying it intends to “vigorously defend” itself.
“We are disappointed that the FTC rejected our proposal to provide additional records and instead chose to pursue this matter in court,” the retailer said.
Total Wine will provide more than a terabyte of “volumes of records and other data” to the FTC by early April, and will produce millions more when talks break down in late April, the company said. He said he agreed.
The disagreement concerned “several additional categories of documents that the company believed in good faith were irrelevant to the FTC's investigation or otherwise objectionable.”
Total Wine announced in August that it had informed the FTC that it wanted to resume discussions.
The Southern Glazers did not respond to requests for comment.
Total Wine is a Maryland-based retailer with 257 stores in 28 states, including 38 in Texas. The retailer supported several local elections that would allow alcohol sales in parts of the state that were previously prohibited.
Total Wine is owned by Maryland Congressman David Trone, who is running for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring Maryland State Senator Ben Cardin.
Mr. Tron has been a member of Congress since 2019, but according to the article, he is spending $12 million of his own money toward his re-election in 2022. The Washington Post. He did not say how much money he would spend in his Senate race, but said he did not intend to accept money from PACs.
“I promised that I would not take money from PACs, I would not take money from lobbyists. Being a member of the Appropriations Committee, there are certainly a lot of people who would like to write you a check, but we We will not accept any of those checks,” Tron said. post. “I think that’s what makes our integrity shine through.”
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