Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: AAI applauds rejection of Massachusetts hospital merger settlement, (Feb 3, 2015)
Organizations Mentioned:American Antitrust Institute | Partners Healthcare System, Inc.
By Greg Hammond, J.D.
The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) commended the Suffolk County, Massachusetts Superior Court on January 30 for its decision to reject a proposed settlement that would allow Partners Healthcare System, Inc. to acquire two community hospital systems in the Boston area. The court found that the settlement would not adequately resolve the Massachusetts Attorney General’s concerns that the acquisition would be anticompetitive, as the proposed remedies were temporary and limited in scope (Commonwealth v. Partners Healthcare System, Inc., Dkt. SUCV2014-02033-BLS2).
AAI submitted two reports to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office in September and October 2014, urging that the Superior Court reject the proposed settlement. According to the reports, the settlement provided for conduct remedies that are clearly inferior to blocking an anticompetitive merger or other structural relief. Further, AAI argued that conduct remedies are usually unsuccessful because antitrust enforcers and courts lack the expertise and the institutional capability to adequately regulate firms with market power and to counteract the firm’s natural incentives to exploit it. The court noted that AAI’s comments were “among the most valuable.”
“The decision should send a signal to state and federal antitrust enforcers that they shouldn’t settle for remedies that do not provide adequate protection for competition and consumers,” AAI Vice President and General Counsel Richard Brunell stated.
“We were pleased that the Court accepted AAI’s and other opponents’ arguments that complex and hard-to-enforce price caps [and] other conduct remedies are not an effective way to resolve harmful mergers,” said AAI President Diana Moss. “Conduct remedies in antitrust cases do not involve reducing the share of the merged firm or concentration in the market—only that the merged firm adhere to certain conditions.”
Companies: Partners Healthcare System, Inc.; American Antitrust Institute
News: Antitrust