FTC ends four-year fight with Phoebe Putney

Phoebe Putney Health System will keep the Albany, Ga., hospital whose acquisition gave it a monopoly there. A settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, announced last week, ends the public system’s four-year fight with the commission.

But that agreement also could expose Phoebe Putney to civil lawsuits and limits its legal options should competitors seek to enter the market.

The FTC settlement with Phoebe Putney came roughly four years after the agency first sought to block the health system’s acquisition of a local hospital.

The FTC succeeded in the courts— including a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court victory—but lost in the Georgia marketplace when the agency was unable to force Phoebe Putney to divest the hospital. The state’s certificate-of-need law essentially blocked Phoebe Putney from unwinding the acquisition, which proceeded as the FTC battled the deal in the courts.

“While it would have been the most appropriate and effective remedy to

restore the lost competition in Albany and the surrounding six-county area from this merger to monopoly, Georgia’s certificate of need (CON) laws and regulations unfortunately render a divestiture in this case virtually impossible, leading us to accept this less-than-ideal remedy,” the commission said in a statement.