Intermittently, over the last few months, we have been telling you about the least-sexy beer politics story in the history of beer politics stories; whether WEDCO, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch, has been conducting business legally in Illinois.
I spoke to Terry McConville, Assistant General Counsel for the Secretary of State’s Department of Business Services, who headed up the investigation. He said that while WEDCO does have a minority interest in a registered business in Illinois (City Beverage) WEDCO itself does not have to be registered with the state. “WEDCO has minimal ties, not enough to require them to register,” said McConville.
The issue was raised months ago at an Illinois Liquor Control Commission hearing but didn’t appear to go very far until we stepped in and brought it to the attention of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.
McConville’s investigation required multiple rounds of questioning and – by law – AB InBev had 30-days to respond to each set of questions, which explains the amount of time it took to close the book on this one.