GOVERNMENT: A. & P. Settlement

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The shooting stopped last week in one of the biggest civil antitrust suits since the war. In Manhattan the U.S. Government and the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. signed a consent decree. It left the company, which the Government had wanted to split into seven separate units, virtually untouched, but banned such practices as 1) using its enormous buying power to squeeze heavy discounts from suppliers, and 2) selling below cost in an area to undermine competition. The biggest change: A. & P. will dissolve its huge produce-buying subsidiary, the Atlantic Commission Co., which has been under fire for acting both as an industrywide agent for fresh-food suppliers and a buyer for A. & P. itself.