FTC Kiboshes Mega-Distributor Deal

Dear Client: After a full year of merger negotiations, huge wine and spirits distributors Breakthru Beverage and Republic National Distributing Co., as reported last week by my colleague Sarah Barrett at Wine & Spirits Daily. The reason both companies gave for the termination of negotiations, and the withdrawal of their antitrust filing with the FTC, is that the agency has been allegedly dragging their feet with approvals and both companies were tired of mounting legal fees.    But that’s not