Health Law Litigation Services

Antitrust Law

When health care entities engage in joint ventures, networks and other collaborative relationships, they must carefully consider the antitrust implications of such arrangements, most notably under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Federal and state enforcement agencies as well as private parties have been increasingly active in scrutinizing and, in some cases, challenging mergers, joint ventures and other arrangements among health care providers.

Attorneys in the firm have broad experience in assessing the antitrust considerations facing health care providers. They have participated in structuring proposed multi-hospital mergers, affiliations, joint ventures and networks so as to reduce antitrust exposure; conducted market share and market power analyses to assess the antitrust risk of these activities; and evaluated the need for, and then assisted clients as they prepared to file, pre-merger notification under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. 

Representative projects for which members of the Practice Area have provided antitrust counsel include development of numerous regional and national provider networks; assessing antitrust issues associated with enforcement of restrictive covenants in multi-specialty group practice employment contracts; planning a multi-phased network among several institutions in the metropolitan Chicago area; evaluating an affiliation contemplated by two hospital systems; assessing failing company and efficiency justifications for the merger of the only two hospitals in a municipality; advising a hospital as to the antitrust implications of a joint venture for shared perinatal and obstetrical/gynecological services; evaluating managed care ventures among physicians and hospitals; evaluating the merger of specialty physician practices in the context of network formation by the hospitals at which they practice; and evaluating joint contracting arrangements by specialty physicians.

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