Georgia Attorney General’s Office filed a joint complaint with the FTC seeking to enjoin any transaction involving Phoebe Putney, the Hospital Authority of Albany-Dougherty County or Palmyra Park Hospital under which Phoebe Putney would acquire control of Palmyra Park Hospital’s operations, until the conclusion of the FTC’s administrative proceeding and any subsequent appeals.
The complaint alleges that the transaction as proposed would violate federal law by eliminating the vigorous competition that currently exists between Phoebe Putney and Palmyra Park Hospital in Albany and the surrounding six-county area. The complaint also alleges that Phoebe Putney has used the Hospital Authority to cloak private, anticompetitive activity in governmental guise in the hopes that it would exempt the acquisition from federal antitrust law. Court granted TRO, case filed under seal.