Exactly two weeks after issuing an interim staff report on Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers (PBMs) pursuant to its Section 6(b) authority to study markets, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated another 6(b) study...more
In early June, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) reached an agreement dividing responsibility over AI oversight. The FTC will oversee competitive concerns relating to major software...more
Welcome to this week's issue of AI: The Washington Report, a joint undertaking of Mintz and its government affairs affiliate, ML Strategies. This week, we discuss the Senate Judiciary Committee’s December 13, 2023 hearing...more
12/20/2023
/ Algorithms ,
Amicus Briefs ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Data Collection ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sherman Act ,
Summary of Consumer Rights
Since the beginning of Chair Khan’s tenure at the Federal Trade Commission (and in line with President Biden’s aim to curb rising health care costs), the current FTC has committed to bring enforcement actions against health...more
Welcome to this week’s issue of AI: The Washington Report, a joint undertaking of Mintz and its government affairs affiliate, ML Strategies.
The accelerating advances in artificial intelligence (“AI”) and the practical,...more
9/11/2023
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Automation Systems ,
Bias ,
Deep Fake ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Machine Learning ,
New Regulations ,
Risk Assessment ,
Transparency ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced Monday that it had reversed its in-house Administrative Law Judge’s (“ALJ”) Initial Decision dismissing a complaint brought by FTC staff against Illumina, Inc.’s acquisition of...more
4/6/2023
/ Acquisition Agreements ,
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Divestment ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Life Sciences ,
Merger Controls ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Section 7 ,
The Clayton Act ,
Vertical Mergers
On July 25, 2022, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland alleging that poultry processors, Cargill Inc. and Cargill...more
8/3/2022
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Compensation ,
Consent Decrees ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Meat Processing Plants ,
Poultry ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sensitive Business Information ,
Sherman Act ,
Trade Associations ,
Wage and Hour
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) just announced that they will host a virtual workshop on December 6 and 7, 2021, to discuss the agencies’ efforts to promote...more
A blog post from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) on Tuesday was the latest announcement suggesting that a shake-up is underway for the agency’s merger review process. The post stated that the FTC’s Bureau of Competition...more
Last week, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the criminal indictment of Surgical Care Affiliates LLC (“SCA”), an Alabama- and Illinois-based company, which owned and operated outpatient medical centers around the...more
Earlier this week, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in the case of Gold Medal LLC v. USA Track & Field. The decision, on appeal from the District Court for the District of Oregon,...more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a new initiative to terminate “legacy” antitrust judgments that “no longer protect competition.” In 1979, the DOJ adopted a general practice to include sunset provisions that...more
While antitrust enforcement of hospital mergers is well-established, physician acquisitions have only recently and increasingly seen antitrust scrutiny. Last week, in a 69-page opinion, a federal district court granted the...more
On October 23, 2017, a company that developed software to track and trace pharmaceuticals filed a complaint against a pharmaceutical distributors trade association that currently dominates the market for such software,...more
After five years of growth through a series of acquisitions, the Washington State Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit to thwart and unwind the most recent expansion efforts of Franciscan Health System (“CHI Franciscan”)...more
9/13/2017
/ Acquisitions ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Attorney General ,
Consumer Protection Act ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Costs ,
Merger Controls ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sherman Act ,
State Antitrust Claims ,
The Clayton Act
Even with a reduced lineup of only two commissioners — the Republican Acting Chair and one Democratic Commissioner — the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC” or “Commission”) filed an administrative complaint this week against...more
6/2/2017
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Immunity ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Appraisal ,
Competition ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Real Estate Market ,
Real Estate Professionals ,
Section 5 ,
State Action Immunity ,
State Boards
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the State of Illinois successfully concluded their challenge to the proposed merger of Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University Health System earlier this month, when the U.S....more
The Third Circuit reminds, “[i]n antitrust suits, definitions matter.” Last week, in applying that maxim, the court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a suit filed by a hospital against a competing hospital and physician...more
Keystone Orthopaedic Specialists, LLC (“Keystone”), and Orthopaedic Associates of Reading, Ltd. (“OA”) reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission last week that they had violated the antitrust laws through the...more
In June, an antitrust suit brought by plaintiff ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”) against a health system, health insurers, and a trade association survived a motion to dismiss. Last week, the ASCs’ case cleared the hump of...more
9/3/2015
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Conspiracies ,
False Statements ,
Insurance Industry ,
Joint Venture ,
Leave to Amend ,
Monopolization ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Sherman Act ,
Trade Associations
Over two and one-half years after it was initially filed, an antitrust suit brought by plaintiff ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”) against health insurers and a trade association of competing health systems is finally...more
On February 25, 2015, in a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision finding that the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners (Board), although a state...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) has often stated that merger analysis requires more than a simplistic determination that high market concentration leads to anticompetitive effects. Still, the antitrust...more
On January 16, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) announced that it does not presently intend to challenge the Greater New York Hospital Association’s (“GNYHA”) proposed gainsharing program. The program...more