Ticker: Supreme Court allows class-action against Nvidia; Kroger, Albertsons deal ends in lawsuit

The Supreme Court is allowing a class-action lawsuit that accuses Nvidia of misleading investors about its past dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile cryptocurrency to proceed.

The court’s decision Wednesday comes the same week that China said it is investigating the microchip company over suspected violations of Chinese anti-monopoly laws. The justices heard arguments four weeks ago in Nvidia’s bid to shut down the lawsuit, then decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place. They dismissed the company’s appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.

At issue was a 2018 suit led by a Swedish investment management firm. It followed a dip in the profitability of cryptocurrency, which caused Nvidia’s revenues to fall short of projections and led to a 28% drop in the company’s stock price.

Kroger, Albertsons deal ends in lawsuit

Kroger and Albertsons’ plan for the largest U.S. supermarket merger in history crumbled Wednesday, with Albertsons pulling out of the $24.6 billion deal and the two companies accusing each other of not doing enough to push their proposed alliance through.

Albertsons said it had filed a lawsuit against Kroger, seeking a $600 million termination fee as well as billions of dollars in legal fees and lost shareholder value. Kroger said the claims were “baseless” and that Albertsons was not entitled to the fee.

“After reviewing options, the company determined it is no longer in its best interests to pursue the merger,” Kroger said in a statement Wednesday.

The bitter breakup came the day after two judges halted the proposed merger in separate court cases. U.S. District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson in Oregon issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday blocking the merger until an in-house judge at the Federal Trade Commission could consider the matter.

An hour later, Superior Court Judge Marshall Ferguson in Seattle issued a permanent injunction barring the merger. Ferguson ruled that combining Albertsons and Kroger would lessen competition and violate consumer-protection laws.