On April 22, 2014, a three-judge panel for the 6th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals unanimously ordered ProMedica Health System to
unwind its merger with a local Ohio hospital, upholding a Federal
Trade Commission order that the acquisition was anticompetitive.
ProMedica Health Sys., Inc. v. FTC, No. 12-3583, 2014 U.S.
App. LEXIS 7500 (6th Cir. Apr. 22, 2014).
ProMedica is a nonprofit health care system based in Ohio that
signed an agreement in 2010 to merge with St. Luke's community
hospital. While the transaction did not trigger the
Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification thresholds, the FTC
nevertheless opened an investigation in 2010, and then moved to
block the merger out of a concern that ProMedica would increase
prices for inpatient services. Although ProMedica felt its
acquisition helped the Toledo, Ohio, community by saving St.
Luke's from insolvency, the FTC disagreed. The FTC's
victory closes a four-year dispute, where it obtained a preliminary
injunction
