The Republican-led Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted Thursday to drop a lawsuit against PepsiCo. The previous Democratic-controlled FTC filed the suit in January, just before the Biden administration ended.

The complaint accused PepsiCo of giving Walmart unfair pricing advantages. It cited the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, which bars companies from favouring large buyers over smaller ones with special promotional deals.

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Former FTC Chair Lina Khan, along with Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, supported the lawsuit. Republican Commissioners Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak opposed it.

Soon after the filing, President Donald Trump took office. Khan resigned, and Trump fired Slaughter and Bedoya in March. Both have filed lawsuits claiming their removal was illegal.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson dismissed the case as politically driven.

“The Biden-Harris FTC rushed to authorise 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.

PepsiCo welcomed the FTC’s decision.

“PepsiCo has always and will continue to provide all customers with fair, competitive, and non-discriminatory pricing, discounts and promotional value,” the company stated.