Week two of the Big Grocery merger trial in downtown Portland wrapped up a bit early today, an unexpected witness from Walmart, an expected witness was not available until Monday. So they shut the thing down before noon on this Friday. Earlier this week, the CEO S of Kroger and Albertson's testified, Kroger owns Fred Meyer Albertson's own safeway and Kroger wants to buy Albertson's for $24.6 billion saying it will help them compete against other giants like Walmart, Amazon Costco, the Federal trade Commission sued to stop the merger arguing the deal would cut competition between Kroger and Albertson's and bring higher grocery prices to consumers. Bloomberg's antitrust reporter, Leah Nilan has been in the courtroom every day of the trial and is helping us out today. She gave us the highlights from the end of the week too. We heard from the Chief marketing Officer of Kroger whose name is Stuart Aiken and he talked about um, some of the price investments or price cuts that they intend to make uh if the merger goes forward. So he said on day one, they uh intended to slash prices on 28 of the most commonly bought items, um, at Albertsons stores. And then within six months, they're hoping to have been able to, uh, reduce prices or cut them on, um, something like 650 of the most commonly bought items. So they have this, this sort of plan they, uh, for how they intend to roll it out, um, in lowering prices. And that's a big one of their selling points to the judge is that, you know, this um, merger will give us a scale that will be, uh, allow us to lower prices. Um And then probably like one of the most consequential um, witnesses who's testified so far was uh, Susan Morris, she is currently the um, chief operating officer of Albertson's. But um, she has been selected to be the new CEO and president of retail at CNS if the merger goes through. So she would essentially be leading this new company that would be created if uh the merger does happen CNS. By the way, is the wholesaler based in New Hampshire that is set to buy 579 stores across the country as part of this whole deal. Most of those stores are owned by Albertsons. 62 are in Oregon, 100 and 24 in Washington. Susan Morris testified that when she first learned about the merger, she wasn't all that happy about it, mostly because she'd spent decades with Albertson's and was disappointed they'd be sold to one of their biggest competitors. She said that now over time, she has sort of come around um because in part, because she's going to be leading this um new company at CNS, which she says uh the 600 stores is in her view a little bit of a sweet spot because they'll be small enough to be agile. Um But still large enough because they are connected to CNS, the wholesaler to have um some good buying power. Um The FTC uh did try and um poke a couple holes in her testimony. They pointed out that if the merger goes through, she is going to earn $50 million. So, you know, she does have a little bit of an incentive to say these things. Um And that, uh you know, she had made a big point about how, um, you know, she has been involved in a number of mergers that Albertson's has gone through over the years, including the 2015 Safeway One and the FTC pointed out that while uh the 2015 Safeway deal may have been good for Albertsons, it wasn't good for all of the stores that were divested. Why? Well, because many of those divested stores have since closed, be sure to check out Leah's fantastic reporting on this case. Just head over to bloomberg.com. You can find her stories. There's just one week left in this trial. Now, next week we're expecting to hear from other retailers, the Kroger and Albertson they are their main competition. Amazon Walmart Target. Shortly after that, we'll have closing arguments. Best guess is those get underway as early as Wednesday. But it depends on the length of the testimony early in the week. So keep it right here. We have one more story for you when we come back.