Thursday, January 7, 2021
Policing hospital mergers has become a top enforcement priority among federal antitrust enforcers. In 2020 alone, the FTC sued to block three hospital transactions (Jefferson/Einstein, Methodist Le Bonheur/Tenet and Hackensack Meridian/Englewood) and submitted letters to state regulators opposing two transactions (Community/Hendrick and Community/Shannon), while the DOJ has challenged one transaction (Geisinger/Evangelical).
On December 8, the FTC lost the first of its 2020 hospital merger challenges. United States District Judge Gerald Pappert denied the FTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the combination of Philadelphia-area Thomas Jefferson University and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network. The FTC quickly appealed, but the Third Circuit denied the FTC’s motion for an injunction pending appeal. (The FTC has since won a second merger challenge: On December 23, Methodist Le Bonheur abandoned its planned acquisition of two Tene
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On December 8, 2020, a federal court in Pennsylvania rejected a challenge by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the State of Pennsylvania to block a $599 million merger of two hospital and healthcare systems in Philadelphia: the fourteen-hospital Thomas Jefferson University (Jefferson) and the three-hospital Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (Einstein). The court found that the FTC had failed to meet its burden to prove that the merger would result in an increase in prices to insurers and less competition in the relevant geographic market. The FTC has requested the federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit grant a temporary injunction while it appeals the decision. If the emergency motions are denied, the merger could complete as soon as December 21, 2020.
General
China affirms application of merger control to VIE structures with gun-jumping penalties
European Commission positive about implementation of Damages Directive
Digital/TMT
Facebook hit with U.S. antitrust suits over past deals and ongoing conduct
ECJ annulment of Commission’s Paramount pay-TV decision gives third parties more weight in the commitments process
Energy & Infrastructure
Life Sciences
General
U.S. FTC merger enforcement gathers pace
This month we have seen a flurry of activity on the merger control front from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Grabbing the headlines is the announcement that the FTC (and 48 attorneys general) have filed suit against Facebook, alleging that the firm breached antitrust laws through acquisitions and other conduct – see below for a separate article which sets out what you need to know.
Adobe Stock
PHILADELPHIA – A federal judge’s ruling has altered the terms by which negligence can be pled in a lawsuit brought by the parents of a child who alleged medical malpractice in requiring their son to have emergency surgery to remove one of his testicles, but has also denied some of the case’s medical defendants the chance to escape punitive damages.
Lasheena Sipp-Lipscomb and Andres Gardin, Sr., first filed a complaint on April 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Einstein Physicians Pennypack Pediatrics, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network and others alleging violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment Act (EMTALA) and other claims.