Last October, Uber completed its $1.1 billion purchase of alcohol-delivery startup Drizly and began integrating the business into its Uber Eats food-delivery operation. But the Federal Trade Commission isn’t done reviewing the acquisition.
A team of FTC lawyers in New York is scrutinizing the deal as part of a broader probe of whether Uber Eats has tried to monopolize the delivery of alcohol and other convenience store items by acquiring or striking partnerships with rivals rather than competing against them, according to two people with direct knowledge of the case. FTC chair Lina Khan’s willingness to continue the investigation, months after the deal closed, is just the latest sign of how she is breaking precedent with the way the antitrust regulator has operated in the past.
