When the lawsuit was filed, Democrat Lina Khan was the FTC’s chairwoman, and she was joined in support of the lawsuit by Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. At the time, Republican Commissioners Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak dissented.
A few days after the lawsuit was filed, President Donald Trump took office and Khan resigned. Trump fired Bedoya and Slaughter in March. Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the Trump administration, saying their removal was illegal.
Ferguson, who is now the chairman of the FTC, said Thursday that the PepsiCo lawsuit was a "dubious partisan stunt" and FTC staff had more important work to do.
“The Biden-Harris FTC rushed to authorize this case just three days before President Trump’s inauguration in a nakedly political effort to commit this administration to pursuing little more than a hunch that Pepsi had violated the law,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo said Thursday that it was pleased with the FTC's withdrawal of the lawsuit.
“PepsiCo has always and will continue to provide all customers with fair, competitive, and non-discriminatory pricing, discounts and promotional value,” the company said in a statement.