(Image source: Bloomberg ) BY STEVEN SPARKMAN ANCHOR CHRISTIAN BRYANT The U.S. Department of Justice stepped into a brewing battle Thursday, filing a lawsuit to block the merger of two giants in the country’s $80 billion beer industry. The lawsuit seeks to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev , best known as the makers of Budweiser and Michelob from acquiring Grupo Modelo , the makers of Corona. AB InBev already owns half of Grupo Modelo, and offered last year to buy the rest of the company. So why is the Justice Department stepping in? The lawsuit says the $20 billion merger “would substantially lessen competition” in the U.S. and would result in “consumers paying more for beer and having fewer new products” to choose from. AB InBev and Grupo Modelo together make up 46 percent of the beer market in the U.S., according to the lawsuit, which would give them enough power to control pricing. And what about the second place company, MillerCoors ? The lawsuit alleges they aren’t effective competition, since they basically follow along with ABI’s prices. A Bloomberg analyst points out Grupo Modelo has been the market’s low-cost competitor. “Corona, even though it’s half owned by Anheuser-Busch already, has been somewhat of an outlier on pricing. It has not followed Anheuser-Busch’s pricing leads.” But the Justice Department says after trying to compete with Corona through products like Bud Light Lime , ABI has now decided to just get rid of the competition. “What would happen is that the cheap guy out of the market would be taken out. Imagine you have expensive — two expensive companies, one cheap company. That cheap company disappears. What happens? Beer prices go up. That’s why regulators are worried. That’s why they’re suing.” ( Video via CBC News ) The DOJ’s suit is notable because it’s the first time it’s waded into the highly-concentrated beer market. A writer for Forbes says this could be a sign the Department wants to stir up some competition. “Craft brewers ... already face hurdles competing with the biggest players at the distribution level. … The DoJ tends not to look favorably on transactions that will reduce a marketplace to a couple of major players.” A statement from ABI says it plans to contest the DOJ’s action and called the suit “inconsistent with the law, the facts and the reality of the market place.”