Third Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Exclusive Dealing Antitrust Suit Against Hospital and Physician Group
Last week, in Deborah Heart & Lung Center v. Virtua Health, Inc., the Third Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a suit filed by a hospital alleging an illegal exclusive dealing arrangement by a competing hospital and physician group for referrals made by the defendants to a third hospital rather than to the plaintiff hospital. In its decision, the court emphasized the importance of market definitions in antitrust cases, and clarified an antitrust plaintiff’s burden when alleging a Sherman Act Section 1 claim with no allegation of market power. The court held that anticompetitive effects in those cases must then be shown on the relevant market as a whole, not only on a small subset of the market. In a Health Care Antitrust Alert, our antitrust colleagues Bruce Sokler and Farrah Short analyze the Third Circuit's decision.