ProMedica Merger Challenge Unanimously Upheld by Sixth Circuit
This week, the Sixth Circuit unanimously upheld the March 28, 2012 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) administrative decision that ordered ProMedica Health System, Inc. to divest itself of its August 2010 purchase of St. Luke’s Hospital in Lucas County, Ohio.
The Sixth Circuit held that the merger created no substantive or compelling efficiencies and that it would increase ProMedica’s pricing and bargaining power anticompetitively.
Mintz Levin's Antitrust Practice attorneys Bruce Sokler, Helen Kim, and Timothy Slattery analyze the Sixth Circuit's decision and discuss how this landmark decision could be a harbinger of greater scrutiny and enforcement against health care provider mergers that the FTC view as anti-competitive.