United States District Court for the Northern District Alabama federal judge, Hon. R. David Proctor, has decided that health care providers and subscribers suing Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers need only prove that the insurance plans plotted to divide geographic markets to succeed on those claims in antitrust litigation.
Judge Proctor determined that the proper applicable standard to apply in this matter is the per se standard, which automatically assumes hardcore violations like price-fixing harms competition, to the plaintiffs’ allegations that the BCBS plans agreed to divide the market among themselves and not compete with one another through a series of trademark licensing agreements and other arrangements. The judge, who is overseeing the five-year-old MDL that goes to the core of the BCBS model, ruled on summary judgment that the network couldn’t offset any per se violations with evidence of the benefits of the collaboration.
The case is In re: Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation, case number 2:13-cv-20000, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
