Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

In September, 2008, the Commission challenged Reed Elsevier’s $4.1 billion proposed acquisition of ChoicePoint, which would have combined the two leading providers of electronic public record services provided to U.S. law enforcement customers. Public records services compile public and non-public records about individuals and businesses, including credit data, criminal, motor vehicle, property, and employment records, all used by law enforcement as an investigative tool in solving a wide variety of crimes. The transaction, as proposed, would have removed the intense rivalry that had lead to lower prices, product innovations, and improved services and support for law enforcement customers by eliminating the competition between Reed Elsevier’s LexisNexis product and ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and CLEAR products. The Commission required divestiture of ChoicePoint’s product lines to Thomson Reuters Legal Inc. The Commission worked with the Attorneys General of eighteen states on this investigation.

The consent order settled charges that Service Corporation International’s (SCI) proposed acquisition of Alderwoods Group Inc. would likely lessen competition in 47 markets for funeral or cemetery services, leaving consumers with fewer choices and the prospect of higher prices or reduced levels of service. Under the settlement, SCI must sell funeral homes in 29 markets and cemeteries in 12 markets across the United States. In six other markets, SCI must sell certain funeral homes that it plans to acquire or end its licensing agreements with third-party funeral homes affiliated with SCI.

A consent order prohibits Frye Regional Medical Center, Inc., an acute care hospital in Hickory, North Carolina, and its parent company Tenet Healthcare Corporation from entering into any agreement to negotiate fees on behalf of any physician practicing in four North Carolina counties and from refusing to deal with insurance companies and other payers. Also refer to related administrative complaint issued to Piedmont Health Alliance. This settlement is the first case in which the Commission has named a hospital as a participant in an alleged physician price-fixing conspiracy.