The pharmacy chain asked for a narrow hearing on its DOJ-approved purchase of Aetna, as seven witnesses prepare to testify against it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Both CVS and the DOJ argue the hearing should be narrowly tailored, with at least some witnesses excluded.
If allowed to proceed as proposed, the hearing could devolve into “a forum for airing competitors’ grievances,” CVS warned.
CVS Health asked the federal judge overseeing its acquisition of Aetna to prevent seven witnesses who lined up to testifyagainst the megamerger from speaking at a hearing next month.
Although antitrust regulators with the U.S. Department of Justice greenlit the CVS-Aetna deal last fall, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., made clear that his review should not be seen as a rubber stamp. Leon said he wanted to hear from witnesses before deciding whether to sign off on the DOJ-approved deal.
The seven witnesses put forward by three groups of amici curiae include health policy professors and economists from major universities, but CVS argued in a court filingFriday that Leon should decline altogether to hold a hearing with live witnesses. The planned testimony, as outlined in court filings, includes irrelevant arguments that could turn the hearing “into a forum for airing competitors’ grievances about the CVS-Aetna merger and about the healthcare industry more generally,” attorneys for CVS wrote.
The CVS filing argues that the three groups of amici—the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the American Medical Association (AMA), and Consumer Action with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)—would be advancing their own competitive interests if the hearing were to proceed.
“Amici’s submissions demonstrate that such a hearing is unnecessary in light of the considerable record already before the Court,” attorneys for CVS wrote, “and Amici’s planned presentations, consisting almost exclusively of unreliable competitor testimony on issues that are not relevant to the Court’s Tunney Act determination, will add little, if anything, of value.”
In its own filing Monday, the DOJ argued that Leon should limit the testimony to only those items relevant to the scope of Tunney Act review. The DOJ asked the court to strike five of the seven witnesses entirely and limit of the scope of the testimony offered by the other two.
“These limitations will ensure that the hearing remains within the appropriate statutory and constitutional bounds, and will protect the Executive Branch’s constitutionally mandated control over its resource-allocation decisions in the enforcement of antitrust laws,” DOJ attorneys wrote.
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