The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal recently voiced skepticism of Kentucky’s Certificate of Need (“CON”) laws while simultaneously ruling that they met the Fourteenth Amendment’s “rational basis” test.[1]
Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Questions Efficacy of State “Certificate of Need” Laws, Question Whether Reduces Competition
The U.S. healthcare system has been undergoing significant changes since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which helped precipitate a wave of hospital and healthcare system consolidation, as providers sought out ways to achieve scale to reduce costs and improve quality.
Continue Reading The State of Competition in the U.S. Healthcare Industry
As it continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare sector will face increased antitrust scrutiny from the Biden administration, with the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) and Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (the “DOJ”) (together the “Agencies”) as the Agencies ramp up their reviews not just of “horizontal” transactions (i.e., deals between competitors), but also of “vertical” transactions (i.e., deals that combine market participants at different levels of the healthcare industry, such as payors, hospitals, and physician practices).
Continue Reading Vertical Deals in Healthcare: Key Antitrust Takeaways for Private Equity Firms
Make no mistake, the antitrust laws remain in full effect. The leadership of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) have made clear that these enforcers “stand ready to pursue civil violations of the antitrust laws, which include agreements between individuals and business to restrain competition through increased prices, lower wages, decreased output, or reduced quality as well as efforts by monopolists to use their market power to engage in exclusionary conduct.” The DOJ also promised to vigorously monitor and prosecute any criminal violations of the antitrust laws, “which typically involve agreements or conspiracies between individuals or businesses to fix prices or wages, rig bids, or allocate markets.” In fact, the DOJ has drafted proposed legislation to allow more time for its criminal cases by tolling the statute of limitations for criminal antitrust violations for no less than 180 days and until 60 days after termination of the national emergency declared by the President on March 13, 2020.
Continue Reading Speeding Up and Slowing Down Antitrust Reviews – How the Federal Antitrust Agencies Are Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis
The rapidly evolving COVID-19 (coronavirus) situation is impacting local and global companies, disrupting supply chains, creating volatility in the stock market, and causing great concern in local communities. As part of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have announced that they will use their competition and consumer protection enforcement powers to go after offenders taking advantage of the concerns triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak. The DOJ will focus on “hard-core” Section 1 antitrust violations, like price-fixing of personal health protection products, while the FTC will focus on consumer protection violations, like scammers selling fake coronavirus treatments or vaccines.
Continue Reading DOJ and FTC To Focus On Antitrust and Consumer Protection Violations Relating to Coronavirus
On May 7, 2019, The Governor of the State of Washington signed into law Substitute House Bill 1607 (“HB 1607”) – a first-of-its-kind premerger notification requirement covering healthcare transactions closing on or after January 1, 2020. HB 1607 is a timely reminder that state attorneys general have not hesitated in recent years to enforce both federal and their own state antitrust laws when a transaction poses local anticompetitive concerns.
Continue Reading The State of Washington Has Another Arrow in its Healthcare Antitrust Quiver: State Healthcare Antitrust Enforcement in the Spotlight
On January 23, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (“Third Circuit”) issued an opinion denying the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the right to recover attorney’s fees after it had successfully blocked a hospital merger. The Third Circuit determined that the state had no federal statutory basis to be awarded attorney’s fees since the injunction had been granted under Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”), which does not provide for attorneys’ fees, rather than Section 16 of the Clayton Act.
This case establishes binding precedent in the Third Circuit that state attorneys general will only have standing to seek attorneys’ fees in antitrust actions under the Clayton Act when the state actually litigates the case under that section. It also potentially has broader implications if other circuits decide to look to this decision as persuasive authority when deciding similar cases in their jurisdictions.
Continue Reading Third Circuit Rejects State’s Bid for Attorney’s Fees in Hospital Merger Dispute
On December 12, 2018, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied defendants Blue Cross Blue Shield Association’s interlocutory appeal of a District Court decision to analyze BCBS’s geographic market distribution system under the per se rule rather than the rule of reason. Judge R. David Proctor of the Northern District of Alabama certified BCBS’s interlocutory appeal back in June because his decision to proceed under the per se standard of review “involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion.” But rather than resolve the substantive legal issue at hand, the Eleventh Circuit issued a one sentence order denying “Defendants’ petition to appeal.” The parties did not seek to stay the case pending appeal and the underlying action has been moving forward.
Continue Reading Eleventh Circuit Denies Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Interlocutory Appeal Challenging Application of Per Se Rule In Multidistrict Litigation In Alabama
On November 15, 2018, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice settled a two-and-a-half year long lawsuit against Atrium Health, a North Carolina hospital system formerly known as the Carolinas HealthCare System, enjoining Atrium’s anti-steering provisions against health plans. This article discusses the DOJ/Atrium settlement in light of the recent Ohio v. American Express Supreme Court decision, which concerned anti-steering provisions in the two-sided credit card network services market. We previously reported on the DOJ’s suit against Atrium here, and analyzed the implications of the SCOTUS Amex decision on health insurance here.
Continue Reading U.S. Department of Justice Settles Anti-Steering Suit Against Hospital System; First Such Settlement After Amex SCOTUS Decision
On Monday, September 17, 2018, the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) cleared Cigna’s proposed $67 billion acquisition of Express Scripts, the country’s largest pharmacy benefit manager. While the transaction still needs the approval of certain state regulatory agencies, obtaining the DOJ’s approval was widely seen as the transaction’s most significant obstacle to overcome.
Continue Reading Federal Antitrust Regulators Approve Cigna’s Proposed Acquisition of Express Scripts