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On September 21, 2023, the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) sued Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) and U.S. Anesthesia Companions, Inc. (USAP), within the Southern District of Texas, alleging the 2 firms “[e]xecuted a multi-year anticompetitive scheme to consolidate anesthesiology practices in Texas, drive up the value of anesthesia providers supplied to Texas sufferers, and increase their very own earnings.”
In response to the FTC’s criticism, WCAS based USAP in 2012 to execute a technique to consolidate hospital-based anesthesiology providers in Texas, together with by buying massive anesthesiology practices, coming into into price-setting agreements with unbiased practices, and agreeing with a competitor to remain out of a USAP territory. Though WCAS owns lower than 25% of USAP immediately, the FTC has sued the non-public fairness investor and alleged that the investor performed an instrumental function in growing USAP’s horizontal acquisition technique, notably with respect to mergers and acquisitions of anesthesia practices in Texas.
Below the Biden administration, FTC and the Division of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ)(collectively, the Businesses), have been centered on consolidation by non-public fairness, notably with respect to “roll-ups,” that are serial acquisitions of supplier practices in the identical or adjoining geographic areas.
The FTC’s motion is in keeping with the Businesses’ continued give attention to the healthcare business and is the newest in a string of enforcement actions and substantial modifications to federal antitrust enforcement below the Biden Administration. Amongst different issues, the Businesses have withdrawn a long time of healthcare antitrust enforcement steerage, sought to ban worker non-competes, and proposed dramatic revisions to the present merger evaluate framework.
Personal fairness corporations or different buyers contemplating a roll-up technique ought to seek the advice of with counsel to know and navigate the present antitrust enforcement panorama.
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