The Federal Trade Commission has thrown a few wet blankets in the go-go world of healthcare corporate transactions in recent years, in the form of litigation to block mergers. But the agency's new director says most of the FTC's enforcement of antitrust laws actually happens in the less-discussed context of out-of-court settlements known as “consent orders.”
Deborah Feinstein, director of the FTC's Competition Bureau, told audiences at a legal conference in New York on Tuesday that litigation is too slow, costly, uncertain and imprecise to be used in every situation. Whenever the commission has a “workable settlement offer” that repairs the competitive harm, commissioners may decide a settlement is in the public's best interest.
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Mount Sinai Hospital CEO Dr. Kenneth Davis reportedly sees no antitrust bumps on his organization's path to absorbing Continuum Health Partners into what would be New York City's largest healthcare provider.
The Mount Sinai and Continuum boards just this week signed a definitive agreement. Davis, as paraphrased in the New York Times, said a regional office of the Federal Trade Commission had already given them the all-clear.
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