DOJ Withdraws "Safety Zones" For Information Sharing And Other Collaborations

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Published date: 09 February 2023
• Subject Matter: ntitrust/Competition Law, Antitrust, EU Competition
• Law Firm: Crowell & Moring
• Author: Stefan Meisner, Shawn R. Johnson, Alexis Gilman, Olivier N. Antoine, Troy Barsky and Ashley McMahon
• topic: Antitrust and Competition,Business of Law,Administrative Law,Health Law

On Friday, February 3, DOJ announced in a press release that it has withdrawn support for three joint DOJ-FTC policy statements that explicitly describe certain "safety zones" applicable to information sharing among competitors and the formation of certain competitor collaborations (including healthcare provider joint ventures and accountable care organizations (ACOs)) that the antitrust agencies did not intend to prosecute. See 1993 Policy Statement, 1996 Policy Statement, 2011 Accountable Care Organizations. The FTC has not yet withdrawn its support for these statements and the DOJ does not apparently plan to issue new guidance, which may result in the agencies applying differing standards and, at a minimum, creates more uncertainty about how the agencies will evaluate conduct covered by these guidance documents.

In a statement at a Global Competition Review conference on February 2, Doha Mekki, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and second-in-command of the...