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The article discusses issues related to anticompetitive exchange of information between the retailer and the supplier. It notes that in business discussion, the competition will be affected if the conversation is being transmitted to the competitors. Antitrust law that promotes free competition should include the welfare-reducing effects if the consumer benefit is affected. The direct competitor-to-competitor information exchange law can help to deal properly with "hub-and-spoke-type" arrangements. The British authorities use the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that renders constructive knowledge approach and the Court of Appeal that involves actual knowledge.

The article focuses on the views of the two countervailing buyer power, the Irish Competition Authority and the High Court about the Kerry/Breeo merger in Europe. It discovers that the two grocery retailers failed to perform enough countervailing buyer power under the Competition Act 2002. It also investigates the other major aspects of the guidelines for retailer merger including the concept of countervailing buyer power, several observations of the merger, findings of the Authority and the High Court as well as the various implications related to merger control.