Amazon-Whole Foods deal is not an antitrust issue, Wilbur Ross says
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday called Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market a “clever move,” and Ross does not foresee any antitrust concerns for the multi-billion dollar deal.
“I think it was a very clever move to marry together a very good, high quality niche retailer with the very broad brush approach of marketing everything that Amazon has done so well. But I surely don’t see any anti-trust implications in that,” Ross told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced Friday its deal to buy Whole Foods (NYSE:WFM) for $13.7 billion. The acquisition could have a big impact on e-commerce as well as brick-and-mortar retailers.
Ross said corporations that grow in size only become a problem when they abuse their power to gain unfair competitive advantage.
“I don’t believe that Amazon has been using predatory pricing or any such thing to compete unfairly and it seems to me what America is all about is competing fairly and if you do, then if you can compete better than some other company, then surely you can get big and surely you can get powerful,” he said.
When asked if he had any antitrust concerns over the online-retailer bursting into the food-retail space, the Commerce Secretary said, “I haven’t seen anything that Amazon has done that would qualify remotely for antitrust consideration.”
