A federal judge in Washington approved UnitedHealth Group’s multibillion-dollar plan to acquire Change Healthcare, giving the company a win over the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which had sought to get the deal blocked.
The merger was announced in January 2021. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the deal in February 2022, insisting that the acquisition would give UnitedHealth, the largest health insurer in the United States, access to competitor data which would end up pushing up the cost of health care.
In the lawsuit (pdf), the DOJ argued that the proposed transaction is likely to “substantially lessen” competition in relevant markets, thus pushing down the quality of services, raising prices, and limiting innovation….