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
On Feb. 18, in U.S. v. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the First Circuit Court of Appeals joined the Sixth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit in holding that, for purposes of establishing that a claim for payment of items or services...more
2/21/2025
/ Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Appeals ,
Appellate Courts ,
Causation ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Government Agencies ,
Healthcare Fraud ,
Medicare ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Qui Tam ,
Regeneron ,
Summary Judgment ,
Whistleblowers
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
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Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (Agencies) announced on Dec. 11, 2024, that they have withdrawn the Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors (Guidelines) issued in...more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
In a prior post, we discussed the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) lawsuit against U.S. Anesthesia Partners (“USAP”) and the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (“Welsh Carson”). Most recently, the U.S....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
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) motion to dismiss the criminal charges it had previously brought against Surgical Care Affiliates, LLC and...more
As explained in prior posts, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed suit in April of this year in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to enjoin Louisiana Children’s Medical Center (“LCMC”) from...more
Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice announced that they will be co-hosting three workshops to facilitate public dialogue on the recently issued draft Merger Guidelines.
The first...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
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (the “Agencies”) jointly issued a draft update of their Merger Guidelines intended to describe and guide the Agencies’ review of...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
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) on June 27 issued a proposed rule pursuant to which it would amend its Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (“HSR”) form and instructions and in so doing make major “top-to-bottom” changes for the first...more
7/7/2023
/ Comment Period ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Horizontal Mergers ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Proposed Amendments ,
Section 7 ,
Section 8 ,
Sherman Act ,
The Clayton Act
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
Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Axon Enterprises-
With the October 2022 term of the U.S. Supreme Court (“Court”) now underway, health care providers and others in the health care industry contemplating merger and...more
10/25/2022
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
American Hospital Association ,
Amicus Briefs ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Black Box ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Fifth Amendment ,
FTC Act ,
Hospitals ,
Oral Argument ,
PCAOB ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
SCOTUS ,
Subject Matter Jurisdiction
In the first part of this article, we discussed the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recently issued staff policy paper strongly urging states to avoid using Certificates of Public Advantage (“COPA”) which seek to immunize...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