The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Retail Services & Systems, Inc., parent company of national bev-alc retailer Total Wine & More, have finalized a settlement in their dispute over the chain’s participation in the FTC’s investigation of one of its distributor partners.
The parties filed a joint notice of the agreement yesterday in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia. They requested the cancellation of a show cause hearing that was scheduled for tomorrow and asked the court to stay the matter for 120 days while the terms of the agreement are implemented.
The dispute stems from the FTC’s civil investigative demand (CID) of Total Wine earlier this fall as part of its investigation of multistate wine and spirits distributor Southern Glazer’s for alleged violations of the Robinson-Patman Act, which bars suppliers from offering favorable pricing to larger retailers.
Total Wine complied with some demands for information, but not all, and said the information it provided ensured that the FTC “knows every price that RSSI’s affiliated entities have paid since 2018 to Southern, along with the retail prices at which those products were sold.”