On June 30, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released final Vertical Merger Guidelines. As noted previously, the agencies had issued draft guidelines that were subject to...more
Employers’ engagement and use of various types of vendors has expanded recently, to include vendors who assist with office re-entry screening and contact tracing as employees return to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...more
6/26/2020
/ Contract Terms ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Third-Party Service Provider
In a June 18, 2020, letter to the heads of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, several U.S. Senators expressed their views that the draft vertical merger guidelines...more
In April 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released its annual report for 2019. The FTC’s annual report details the FTC’s actions over the prior year. In 2019, similar to other years, the health care industry...more
One of the more difficult questions faced by a dominant firm is whether to do business with a rival. The general rule, premised on the principle that true competition affords everyone the ability to make decisions about whom...more
On April 30, 2020, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a press release announcing a deferred prosecution agreement with a major oncology practice in Florida. As a condition of the deferred...more
On April 21, 2020, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published a Request for Information (“RFI”) that reopened the comment period for an interim final rule that was published March 31, 2010 (75 FR 16236) (the “2010...more
Antitrust enforcers from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), during a roundtable discussion at this year’s virtual spring meeting of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Section, proclaimed that, with certain...more
On March 24, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that they would expedite antitrust guidance for COVID-19 public health projects. In the agencies’ joint statement,...more
The Premerger Notification Office of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that their review of Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) filings will continue despite...more
On March 9, 2020, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published their long-awaited final rules that seeks to promote...more
On March 17, 2020 the Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced that it would “exercise its enforcement discretion and will waive any potential penalties for HIPAA violations” for...more
As organizations are working to respond to the 2019 novel coronavirus (known as “COVID-19”), the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a reminder that emergency efforts do not negate the requirement to adhere to the...more
3/13/2020
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Bid Rigging ,
Competition ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Crisis Management ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Emergency Response ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Preventive Health Care ,
Price-Fixing ,
Public Health
As discussed in an earlier blog post, the New York state Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (or “SHIELD Act”), was signed into law on July 25, 2019....more
3/2/2020
/ Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Management ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Risk Management ,
Security Standards ,
SHIELD Act ,
State and Local Government ,
State Data Breach Notification Statutes
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) have a long history of teaming up to ensure that advertising and other promotional communications for...more
2/27/2020
/ Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Biologics ,
Biosimilars ,
Competition ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Healthcare Costs ,
Joint Statements ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Sales Promotions ,
Truth in Advertising
Adjustments to the reporting thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (“Act”) will become effective on February 27, 2020. At that time, the minimum size-of-transaction threshold goes up to $94...more
On January 28, 2020, the Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) addressed a federal court’s January 23rd invalidation of certain provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and...more
2/12/2020
/ Covered Entities ,
Data Protection ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Document Requests ,
Electronic Medical Records ,
Fees ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
HIPAA Omnibus Rule ,
HITECH Act ,
OCR ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
PHI ,
Third-Party Service Provider
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (collectively, “Agencies”) recently released for public comment their much-anticipated draft Vertical Merger Guidelines (“Guidelines”) that purport to “outline...more
1/30/2020
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Comment Period ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Draft Guidance ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Horizontal Merger Guidelines ,
Merger Controls ,
Mergers ,
Public Comment ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Vertical Mergers
January 28th marks Data Privacy Day which commemorates the signing of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. This international treaty is the first of its kind...more
1/28/2020
/ California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Collection ,
Data Management ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Information Governance ,
Personal Data ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Laws ,
Risk Management ,
Rulemaking Process ,
SHIELD Act ,
State and Local Government
Providers that are not financially or clinically integrated must keep separate operations. This can extend to the use of a common agent for the non-integrated providers. The U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade...more
How a transaction gets structured raises a multitude of issues, including whether the transaction might be reportable under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (“HSR”). Structuring a transaction for the purpose...more
Once the parties to a transaction have signed a definitive agreement, there may be a sense that the parties can more freely share competitively sensitive information. However, until closing, the antitrust laws require that...more
This past June, President Trump issued an Executive Order on Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First (“Order”), intending to increase price and quality transparency for American...more
The fact that a merger might be anticompetitive is not a reason to prohibit a transaction if all of the elements of the “failing firm defense” are met, as described below. In fact, the antitrust agencies have long recognized...more
On September 16, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) released their combined Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report (“Report”) for fiscal year 2018 (covering the...more