In this Issue:
United States
1.
FTC to study impact of physician group and health care facility mergers.
As part of its Merger Retrospective Program, on Jan. 13, 2021, the FTC issued an Order to File a Special Report to six health insurance companies. The FTC plans to use information gathered through the Special Report (e.g., patient-level data from 2015 to 2020) to analyze the competitive impact of physician and health care facility consolidation, as well as mergers and acquisitions, in markets for health care services.
2. FTC approves final order imposing conditions on combination of Pfizer Inc.’s Upjohn and Mylan N.V.
On Jan. 28, 2021, the FTC announced its final order approving the combination of the Upjohn division of Pfizer Inc. and Mylan N.V. in a spinoff, forming Viatris Inc. The FTC alleged that the proposed acquisition would harm competition in generic drug markets. The final order requires the parties to divest certain rights and assets in seven current generic
Friday, February 5, 2021
UK merger control – a new dawn?
The start of 2021 coincides with the end of the transition period following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. In turn, this brings about the most significant change to UK merger control since the introduction of the current UK regime by the Enterprise Act 2002.
This is because, as reported in previous editions of Competition Currents, one of the key consequences of the end of the transition period is that the EU’s “one-stop shop” merger control regime no longer covers the UK: new M&A transactions are now potentially subject to parallel investigations in Brussels and London.