The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday voted 2 to 1 to reverse a district court’s grant of summary judgment under which a defendant hospital network had been found to be a single entity incapable of conspiring with itself in an...more
In the latest chapter in the litigation wars against college athletics, on March 8, 2016, another antitrust class action was filed against the NCAA in its “home court,” the United States Southern District of Indiana. This...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) submitted written comments last week on the likely competitive impact of a legislative proposal in West Virginia to modify the supervision requirements imposed on Advanced Practice...more
An upstart rodeo association, created and owned by professional rodeo cowboys, challenged that its competitor’s bylaws aimed at the new association and its participants constituted agreements that unreasonably restrain trade...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 21, 2016 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act)....more
A federal district court denied the Texas Medical Board’s (the Board) motion to dismiss an antitrust suit filed by a telemedicine company (Teladoc), finding that the Board is not entitled to state action immunity because its...more
Last week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) authorized an action to block a proposed hospital merger pending an administrative trial. According to the FTC, the merger of Penn State Hershey Medical Center (Hershey) and...more
Last week the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) issued an administrative complaint challenging the merger of two West Virginia hospitals that had earlier been cleared by the state’s Attorney General (“W.V. AG”)...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently submitted comments to Virginia and Tennessee regarding proposed laws in each state relating to Cooperative Agreements between hospitals and the granting of Certificates of Public...more
In what has become rare of late, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) suffered a litigation loss in a merger case with a district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction to block the deal pending administrative litigation....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
At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed this week in federal court a proposed settlement to charges that an investment fund violated the...more
8/27/2015
/ Board of Directors ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Shareholders ,
Third Point ,
Yahoo!
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or “Commission”) ever-expanding list of enforcement actions to preserve competition for generic pharmaceuticals just grew in a new direction. This week, two generic pharmaceutical...more
Eighteen months after the deal was first announced, Sysco Corporation (“Sysco”) and US Foods, Inc. (“USF”) abandoned their $3.5 billion merger following the Federal Trade Commission’s (the “FTC” or “Commission”) decisive...more
7/8/2015
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Distributors ,
Divestiture ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Food Supply ,
Mergers ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Sysco ,
Trucking Industry ,
US Foods ,
Young Lawyers
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
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) filed an administrative complaint last week challenging the proposed $1.9 billion merger of Steris Corporation (“Steris”) and Synergy Health plc (“Synergy”), charging that...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) accepted on Tuesday from Reynolds American Inc. (“Reynolds”) and Lorillard Inc. (“Lorillard”), subject to final approval, a Consent Order settling the agency’s significant competitive...more
5/30/2015
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Investigations ,
Consent Order ,
Divestiture ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Mergers ,
RJ Reynolds ,
Settlement Offer ,
The Clayton Act ,
Tobacco
The waves of change affecting health care providers include reimbursement and funding developments, the impact of the Affordable Care Act, technological and medical advances, provider network design transformations imposed by...more
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) co-hosted the second installment of their public workshop series, “Examining Health Care Competition.” Complementing last year’s focus on...more
In a much anticipated appellate health care antitrust decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s finding that a consummated hospital-physician group merger violated Section 7...more
I still consider Groundhog’s Day not only a great comedy, but also a great movie. Twenty-two years ago, the late Harold Ramis graced us with a tale about Phil Connors, a Pittsburgh TV weatherman, who finds himself repeating...more
Last March, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) began a public workshop series entitled, “Examining Health Care Competition.” On February 24 and 25, 2015, the FTC will physically host the...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 15, 2015 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act)....more
The Tenth Circuit recently affirmed both class certification and one of the largest verdicts issued in the U.S. this year, denying Dow Chemical Company’s (“Dow”) appeal in a price fixing case related to polyurethane products....more
On August 5, 2014, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims of monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act brought by a manufacturer of surgical bone mills against a competitor. ...more