Markets Wired

Tops Markets LLC has submitted an application to the Federal Trade Commission seeking approval to sell three supermarkets to Hometown Markets, LLC. Tops is required to sell a total of seven supermarkets in five geographic markets – Bath, Cortland, Ithaca, and Lockport, New York; and Sayre, Pennsylvania – under a proposed FTC order settling charges that Tops’s January 2010 acquisition of the bankrupt Penn Traffic Company supermarket chain would be anticompetitive.

In the application, Tops proposes to sell three supermarkets formerly owned by Penn Traffic located in Ithaca, New York (at 315 Pine Tree Road), Cortland, New York (at 160 Clinton Ave.) and Sayre, Pennsylvania (at 1730 Elmira Street) to Hometown Markets, under an asset purchase agreement dated May 2, 2011.

The Commission is accepting public comments on Tops’s application until June 6, 2011, after which it will decide whether to approve the sales. Written comments should be sent to: FTC Office of the Secretary, 600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20580. To file a comment, please click here, and follow the instructions at that site. Copies of the application also can be found on the FTC’s website and as a link to this press release. (FTC File No. 101-0074, Docket No. C-4295; the staff contact is Elizabeth A. Piotrowski, Bureau of Competition, 202-326-2623; see press release dated August 4, 2010.)

Copies of the document mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s website at http://www.ftc.gov and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP.

(FYI 23.2011.wpd)