Anthem’s Scorched Earth Trial Strategy
Yesterday afternoon the Department of Justice and State Attorneys General responded to the Special Master’s recommendation that each side be allowed to take up to 275 hours of non-party deposition testimony. In the response, DOJ and State Attorneys General point out that the Anthem-Cigna merger trial has a very compressed discovery schedule that was set based on Anthem’s claims that it needed a speedy trial. The Special Master’s recommendation for a great many hours for depos
Merger Cases Should Be Decided Based On Merit, Not Deals With Health Insurers
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently expressed concerns that Aetna’s reevaluating its involvement in public exchanges was related to the Department of Justice lawsuit against its proposed merger with Humana. And just yesterday, Aetna announced that next year it would no longer offer individual Affordable Care Act plans in eleven of the fifteen states that it has been participating in. This is a clear sign that large insurers are losing money on the Affordable Care Act’s h
Anthem-Cigna Trial Scheduled for November 21st
Last Friday the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia held the scheduling conference for the proposed health insurance merger of Anthem and Cigna. Judge Amy Jackson decided that the merger trial will begin on November 21st, 2016, and that she will render a decision in early January. She stated that while Anthem’s proposed trial schedule was too short, DOJ’s was too long, and she would be operating under the assumption that their merger deadline of April 30th was a h
In Response: Major Parties Do Differ on Antitrust Policy
A brief article appeared in Lexology on Wednesday discussing the likely ramifications for antitrust enforcements after November’s election. We have some disagreements with the authors’ statements and would like to respond point-by-point. The authors state that antitrust enforcement is in the Democratic Party platform, but were not mentioned at either convention. We disagree. Perhaps the mechanics of antitrust enforcement were not spelled out, but convention rhetoric is meant
Aetna-Humana Merger Trial Scheduled for December 5th
This morning the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia held the scheduling conference for the proposed health insurance merger of Aetna and Humana. Judge John D. Bates decided that the merger trial will begin on December 5th, 2016, and last for thirteen days. He will do his best to render a decision as quickly as possible, but he could not promise that the case will be decided before the parties’ self imposed deadline at the end of the year. Judge Bates began the co
Anthem’s Arguments At Trial Status Conference Fall Flat
Update: Judge John Bates announced today that he will keep the Department of Justice case against Aetna’s proposed acquisition of Humana, but he will hand off the challenge to Anthem’s acquisition of Cigna to Judge Amy Jackson. Bates kept the Aetna-Humana merger because it’s on a tighter deadline; the merger agreement between the two companies expires on December 31st, 2016. He implied that he was considering a mid-fall trial date for this merger. As we mentioned previously,
Aetna and Humana’s Divestiture “Solution” Is Nothing of the Sort. Here’s Why.
Remedies are unlikely to solve the competitive problems posed by the Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana mergers, as we discussed in a white paper on the subject a few weeks ago. Aetna and Humana just announced that they are prepared to sell some assets to Molina Healthcare in an attempt to satisfy the Justice Department’s problems with the mergers. However, their proposed solution is woefully inadequate, and antitrust regulators and courts should recognize this. Aetna and Humana s
Flashback: The Failed AOL-Time Warner Merger, and What It Tells Us About Anthem-Cigna
Every few years, merger mania sets in and large industries try to consolidate even further. Consumers can be forgiven for thinking that there is some beneficial purpose of these mergers. However, a KPMG study conducted last year found that 83% of mergers fail. And yet companies continue to merge on the promise that their operations will improve and that these improvements will benefit customers. One of the biggest reasons mergers fail is a clash of corporate cultures. Knowing
