NOVEMBER
29, 2018 / 8:33 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
In an unusual move on Thursday, a federal judge raised the prospect of not
approving CVS Health Corp’s deal to buy insurer Aetna Inc, which closed earlier
this week, during a routine portion of the legal process.
Judge Richard Leon of
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia objected to what he said
was the government’s and companies’ treatment of him as a “rubber stamp” for
the deal, noting that CVS had closed its deal to buy Aetna for $69 billion on
Wednesday.
CVS said in a
statement, “It’s commonplace for acquisitions to close before this final step
in the process is complete, and our focus remains on delivering on the combined
company’s potential.”
The Justice Department
did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Justice Department
gave its OK in October for the merger of CVS, a pharmacy and benefits manager
firm, and Aetna on condition that the health insurer sell its Medicare Part D
drug plan business to WellCare Health Plans. The court must approve the
agreement between the government and merging companies.
Leon raised the
prospect of not deciding on the deal until the summer, or perhaps rejecting it,
before setting another hearing for Monday.
“I was reviewing your
motion, which, of course is not opposed. And I kind of got this uneasy feeling
that I was being kept in the dark, kind of like a mushroom,” Leon told lawyers
for the Justice Department and the two companies, noting that the American
Medical Association, among others, had objected to the deal.
“I’m very concerned,
very concerned that you all are proceeding on a rubber-stamp approach to this,”
he told them, according to a transcript of the hearing.
(This story corrects
attribution in paragraph 3 to reflect merged companies)
Reporting by Diane Bartz;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
No comments:
Post a Comment