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US: Hospitals scrap merger over antitrust concern

By  |  March 7, 2017

Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University HealthSystem are ending their plans to merge following a federal judge’s ruling Tuesday against the systems.

US District Judge Jorge Alonso on Tuesday granted the Federal Trade Commission and state of Illinois’ request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily stop the merger while the commission holds administrative proceedings on the matter.

“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 CEO Mark Neaman wrote in a message to employees obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

The judge filed his opinion under seal Tuesday to give the health systems and the Federal Trade Commission, which has been challenging the proposed merger, time to request competitively sensitive information be retracted.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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