Bates White: Economic Consulting

Yaraslau (Slava) Zayats specializes in applied microeconomics, antitrust economics, and econometrics. On behalf of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), he performed economic analysis in merger, monopolization, and price-fixing investigations in the healthcare industry. On behalf of private entities, he evaluated the competitive effects and antitrust risk of hospital and pharmaceutical mergers, analyzed claims of monopolization and anticompetitive exclusive contract arrangements, and performed economic and statistical analyses of class certification issues.

Dr. Zayats has also worked on major engagements in the areas of products liability (asbestos), environmental contamination (lead), and employment discrimination. He supervised analyses, managed affirmative and rebuttal expert reports, and assisted with responses to motions for summary judgment and Daubert motions.

Dr. Zayats has been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics.

Selected Experience

• Directing economic analysis for a testifying expert on behalf of a health insurer. The issues include alleged monopolization of the market for certain physician services following a series of mergers, affiliations, and exclusive arrangements. Providing the client with an analysis of the relevant antitrust markets and assessment of market power and effects on competition. 

• Supported an expert retained by the Rhode Island Department of Health to analyze the competitive effects of the proposed merger of the two largest hospital systems in Rhode Island: Care New England and Lifespan. The parties ultimately abandoned the proposed merger. 

• Supported a top-tier academic expert on behalf of an ambulatory surgery center in a monopolization lawsuit that alleged illegal bundling and tying by the defendant hospital system. Defined the relevant geographic market, established the existence of the defendant’s market power and anticompetitive tying and bundling. Estimated economic damages sustained by the ambulatory surgery center as a result of the defendant’s exclusive contract arrangement. The case settled after the ambulatory surgery center’s antitrust claims survived summary judgment.

• Led expert analysis for a top-tier academic expert on behalf of the DOJ in a monopolization and price-fixing investigation of a physician group. Spearheaded econometric analyses of market definition and market power, price-fixing, and quality of services provided by the physician group. 

• Investigated, on behalf of a provider of pharmaceutical benefits management services, the antitrust implications of its proposed acquisition of a competitor. Analyzed, in multiple customer segments, bid data on the likely competitive impact of the proposed acquisition. Assisted counsel with the HSR premerger filing.

• Performed market definition and market share analyses and assessed competitive effects and antitrust risk on behalf of a hospital that was considering several merger scenarios in Northern Virginia.

• Supported a top-tier academic expert on behalf of the DOJ in its investigation of a proposed merger between two healthcare insurance companies. Analyzed win-loss data on the likely competitive impact of the proposed merger. Executed econometric analysis of a consumer’s choice of healthcare insurance products. Applied the model to define the relevant geographic market and analyzed the competitive effects of the proposed merger.

Education

PhD, Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BA, Economics, Belarus State Economic University, Belarus