Judge Rejects Bid To Stop Sugar Merger

A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department's bid to block a major U.S. sugar manufacturer from acquiring its rival, clearing the way for the acquisition to proceed.

The ruling, handed down Friday by a federal judge in Wilmington, Delaware, comes months after the Justice Department sued to try to halt the deal between U.S. Sugar and Imperial Sugar Company, one of the largest sugar refiners in the nation. The government had argued that allowing the acquisition to go through would be harmful to consumers and anticompetitive.

U.S. Sugar has argued that the acquisition will increase production and distribution of refined sugar and provide a more secure supply.

The Justice Department has said U.S. Sugar, which operates a large refinery in Florida, sells all of its sugar through a marketing cooperative known as the United Sugars Corporation. Imperial Sugar operates a refinery in Savannah, Georgia, and a sugar transfer and liquidation facility in Ludlow, Kentucky.

The companies announced the acquisition in March, saying that it would return Imperial Sugar to all American ownership. Imperial Sugar is a subsidiary of Louis Dreyfus Company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands.