Just weeks after complaining Booker’s acquisition of Makro would hurt its business, Asda has done a u-turn - claiming its original comments were misreported by the Competitition Competition.

Last month, a summary of Asda’s hearing with the Commission on the £140m deal was published on the Commission’s website, in which the retailer claimed it “would be negatively impacted by the merger if Booker was able to lower its prices”.

However, just days after The Grocer covered the story in the 2 February issue, the document was removed from the website. And this week, a new submission was published on the site, stating: “Asda has no objection to the proposed merger between Booker and Makro and does not anticipate that the merger will have a significant impact on its own business”.

The Commission said Asda had requested that the summary posted on 22 January be replaced on the grounds “it didn’t accurately reflect their position”.

Asda went further, claiming it had been misreported. “We didn’t submit any evidence in opposition of the merger, so the original Commission summary was inaccurate,” a spokeswoman said.

In the new document, dated 12 February and featuring the Asda rather than Commission letter head, Asda also said that it “does not compete directly with the wholesale market but accepts that it is in indirect competition with wholesalers because its customers are able to use both wholesalers and other retailers”.

It also revealed that its Asda Business website, which sells wholesale products, was “targeted towards those products and categories that are more relevant for business customers (such as office equipment, nursery supplies, bulk packs and multipacks).”

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