On April 9, President Trump issued an Executive Order instructing agency heads, in consultation with the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Attorney General, to complete a review of all regulations subject...more
On March 27, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it was launching an Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force, whose stated purpose is to advocate for the elimination of anticompetitive state and federal laws...more
Back in late January, U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez in the Western District of Texas granted summary judgment to Loredo Medical Center (LMC) and a locally-based interventional cardiology group (LMC Cardiology...more
2/24/2025
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Evidence ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Monopolization ,
Section 2 ,
Sherman Act ,
Summary Judgment
In March 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (collectively, Agencies) issued a request for information (RFI) seeking public comment...more
1/27/2025
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
Mergers ,
Physicians ,
Private Equity ,
Transparency
We previously reported on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) lawsuit against U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP) and the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (Welsh Carson). In the lawsuit, the FTC alleges that...more
1/23/2025
/ Acquisitions ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Competition ,
Consent Order ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
Mergers ,
Portfolio Companies ,
Private Equity ,
Private Equity Firms ,
Unfair Competition
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (Agencies) announced on Dec. 11, 2024, that they have withdrawn the Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors (Guidelines) issued in...more
12/16/2024
/ Collaboration ,
Competition ,
Cybersecurity ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Healthcare ,
Horizontal Merger Guidelines ,
Research and Development ,
Safe Harbors ,
SCOTUS ,
Sherman Act ,
Withdrawal
This white paper details the significant differences between the Federal Trade Commission’s Proposed Rule and recently issued Final Rule with respect to various premerger reporting requirements under the Hart-Scott-Rodino...more
10/25/2024
/ Competition ,
Contract Drafting ,
Corporate Officers ,
Corporate Sales Transactions ,
Directors ,
Documentation ,
Employee Retention ,
Federal Register ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Geolocation ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Lead Supervisory Authority ,
Letters of Intent ,
Mergers ,
Minority Shareholders ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Second Requests ,
Suppliers ,
Waiting Periods
Last February, New York-based Northwell Health and Connecticut-based Nuvance Health announced that they had entered into an agreement under which the health systems would merge. Thereafter, the New York State Office of...more
We have been reporting on the Federal Trade Commission’s continuing effort to block Novant Health’s purchase of Lake Norman Regional Medical Center and Davis Regional Psychiatric Hospital from Community Health Systems. Last...more
We reported last week on the U.S. District Court’s denial of an FTC request for a preliminary injunction to block Novant Health’s “Novant) purchase of Lake Norman Regional Medical Center (LNR) and Davis Regional Psychiatric...more
In February, 2023, Novant Health and Community Health Systems (CHS) entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement pursuant to which Novant agreed to acquire Lake Norman Regional Medical Center (LNR) and Davis Regional Psychiatric...more
Over the past several months, antitrust enforcement activity in the healthcare provider sector has continued to steadily increase. In Part I of this two-part update, we discussed recent lawsuits involving private equity...more
4/15/2024
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Cartwright Act ,
Competition ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Lack of Authority ,
Popular ,
Request For Information
Over the past several months, antitrust enforcement activity in the healthcare provider sector has continued to steadily increase. In the litigation context, this has involved, in addition to new lawsuits filed by the...more
On March 6, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (“DOJ”), and the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) (the “Agencies”) announced that they were “launching a...more
As explained in our prior article discussing the recently- issued Merger Guidelines (“Guidelines”), the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (the “Agencies”) having described and discussed the...more
In prior posts, we discussed the draft, updated merger guidelines that had been issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (sometimes referred to as the “Agencies”) in July of last year. At that...more
Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed suit in federal district court alleging that U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Inc. (“USAP”), and the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (“Welsh Carson”), which...more
In a recent post, we discussed the 13 guidelines set forth in the recently issued proposed Hospital Merger Guidelines (“Draft Guidelines”) issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (the “Agencies”)....more
In a prior post, we reported on the issuance by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (the “Agencies”) of a draft update to their merger guidelines (the “Proposed Guidelines”) intended to describe...more
On July 14, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), as anticipated, announced that it was withdrawing two antitrust policy statements related to enforcement in health care markets:
• Statements of Antitrust Enforcement Policy...more
Last Friday, Feb. 3, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a press release in which it announced the withdrawal of what it described as three “outdated” antitrust policy statements related to enforcement in health...more
Mergers between competitor hospitals in the same geographic market have been routinely scrutinized and often challenged by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). Cross-market mergers...more
In the recent hospital merger cases successfully challenged by the FTC (whether via the parties calling off the merger or losing in federal court), the merging parties have argued that, while the merger would not be likely to...more
We previously reported on several cases involving successful antitrust challenges to proposed hospital mergers involving Hackensack Meridian Health System and Englewood Hospital in Bergen County New Jersey; RWJ Barnabas...more
As reported in our June 13, 2022 blog post, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed complaints on June 2 seeking to block the proposed merger of RWJBarnabas Health and Saint Peter’s Healthcare System in New Jersey and the...more