Insights

Washington – February 22, 2019: Crowell & Moring LLP’s Antitrust Group has again been recognized as “Highly Recommended” in Global Competition Review’s (GCR) 19th edition of the “GCR 100” – the leading ranking of the world’s competition policy law and economics practices. This marks the fourth year in a row in which the firm was ranked as “Highly Recommended” in Washington, D.C. and New York. Additionally, the group was ranked as “Recommended” in California. GCR is the leading international journal of competition policy and regulation.

Two significant recent developments illustrate the Trump administration’s increasing focus on policing of hospital contracting practices that limit health plan network design flexibility. On June 16, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division and Ohio attorney general filed a proposed consent decree resolving their civil antitrust suit against OhioHealth. (Prior Alert) Two days later, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a memorandum quantifying the potential economic effects of a broader ban on the types of contracting restrictions at issue in the OhioHealth case and the DOJ's parallel suit against NewYork-Presbyterian. This alert updates our prior coverage of the OhioHealth complaint and summarizes both developments.

On March 19, 2026, a U.S. District Court for the Fifth Circuit panel denied the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) emergency motion for a stay pending appeal of a district court’s order that vacated the FTC’s 2024 overhaul of the HSR premerger notification form.

On February 20, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ) and Ohio Attorney General (Ohio AG) sued OhioHealth Corporation (OhioHealth), alleging that OhioHealth had unlawfully restrained trade in the market for general acute care inpatient hospital services in the Columbus metropolitan statistical area and the narrower Central Columbus area, respectively. The DOJ and Ohio AG allege violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, as well as the Valentine Act (Ohio’s antitrust statute), claiming that OhioHealth leveraged its market power to impose contractual restrictions that blocked payors from working with competing health systems to design “budget-conscious” lower-cost health plans.