|
 NorthShore said in a statement that a federal judge had ruled for
the Federal Trade Commission, which argued that NorthShore's deal to
merge with Advocate Health Care violated U.S. antitrust law and
would harm consumers by hiking healthcare costs and reducing
incentives to upgrade services and improve quality, according to the
December, 2015 complaint.
The FTC said it was pleased with the decision.
"The FTC is delighted with today’s district court ruling, which
enjoined this merger, and the parties’ subsequent decision to
abandon the transaction," said Tad Lipsky, acting director of the
commission’s bureau of competition.
"Advocate and NorthShore’s merger would likely have reduced the
quality, and increased the cost, of health care for residents of the
North Shore area of Chicago," Lipsky said in a statement.
Judge Jorge Alonso of the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois had initially ruled in favor of the companies
but the FTC won on appeal. The case was sent back to Alonso, who
reversed himself and ruled for the agency, the companies said.
The hospital systems said that they would not appeal.
"We have determined with the Advocate Health Care leadership that
the time, cost, and uncertainty of pursuing any additional appeals
would not be worthwhile," NorthShore said in a statement.
Advocate put out a similar statement.
Advocate and NorthShore announced plans to merge in September 2014.
Advocate is in Downers Grove, a suburb west of Chicago while
NorthShore is in Evanston, a northern suburb.
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The FTC had said the merged hospital system would control 55 percent
of the area's general acute care inpatient services. The hospitals
argued that the federal agency's analysis had improperly failed to
include competitors such as Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The FTC, which works with the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce
antitrust law, has struggled lately to enforce its decisions. Still,
the agency did win high-profile fights to stop Sysco Foods from
merging with rival US Foods in 2015 and in 2016 blocked Staples from
merging with Office Depot.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio)
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