Consolidation in the healthcare industry continues to be a focus of regulatory agencies. The Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General have the main responsibility for scrutinizing proposed healthcare provider mergers and then challenging potentially anticompetitive transactions. As an alternative to a legal challenge, the agencies may agree to “remedies” that allow transactions to proceed subject to stipulations. There are two main types of remedies—conduct and structural.
In “Conduct and Structural Merger Remedies in Recent Healthcare Provider Deals,” published in ABA Antitrust Healthcare Chronicle, Senior Consultant Kate Jones and co-author Lindsay Heyer explore case studies of recent hospital transactions. They discuss how the two remedy strategies have been applied and where state approaches have differed from federal enforcement actions. They conclude that while conduct remedies require ongoing monitoring to assess their efficacy, they are often a tool employed by state enforcers, while the FTC continues to prefer structural remedies instead.
The article is available here (subscription necessary).
