On February 8, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted a request filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division for an injunction blocking Anthem, Inc.’s (Anthem) proposed $54 billion acquisition of Cigna Corp. (Cigna).  This decision comes just weeks after the D.C. District Court granted the DOJ’s request for an injunction to block Aetna Inc.’s (Aetna) proposed acquisition of Humana Inc. (Humana) for $37 billion.  The Anthem decision remains under seal to allow the parties to review for confidentiality, though the court did publish a summary opinion.  Anthem has already filed its notice of appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  Pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement, Anthem will owe Cigna a payment of $1.85 billion if the agreement expires at the end of April.  For an analysis and implications of the decision, see King & Spalding’s Client Alert, available here.  King & Spalding antitrust attorneys Norm Armstrong, John Carroll, and Jeff Spiegel have authored an in-depth analysis of the earlier decision against Aetna and Humana in Law360, available here.    

Prior to the Anthem decision, the DOJ’s successful challenge to the proposed merger between Aetna and Humana received substantial attention, and not just from antitrust and health care lawyers. Of course, any time a $37 billion merger is blocked by the government, there will be headlines.  However, the D.C. District Court’s Aetna decision is significant, not just for the way it approached certain health care antitrust issues, but also for its serious criticism of Aetna’s efforts to conceal evidence regarding its reasons for withdrawing from the insurance exchanges. The DOJ’s challenge was also among the final antitrust actions taken under the Obama Administration, which aggressively scrutinized health care consolidations, and there is no indication that the agencies’ enforcement efforts in this industry will abate in the Trump Administration.