The FTC won’t query Amazon’s One Medical deal

“The FTC’s investigation into Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical continues,” stated FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar. “The Fee will proceed to evaluate potential aggressive hurt attributable to this merger, in addition to potential client hurt that will outcome from Amazon’s management and use of delicate client well being info held by One Medical.”

Bloomberg beforehand reported the FTC’s choice to not contest the cope with One Medical.

One Medical is the second Amazon acquisition to go unchallenged on the FTC since Lina Khan, a harsh critic of the corporate, took over the company in 2021. Amazon’s buy of MGM Studios was additionally accomplished with out opposition, though on the time the fee was deadlocked 2-2 alongside partisan traces, stopping a lawsuit.

Federal legislation gives for strict deadlines for merger evaluation. As soon as a deal is filed with the FTC and the Justice Division, authorities have 30 days to resolve whether or not to open an in-depth investigation. If that is so, the deal reviewing authority has a further 30 days to resolve whether or not to problem the deal in courtroom, after the businesses have absolutely complied with all requests for info.

The FTC could agree with merging firms to increase this latter interval. It has not been revealed what agreements Amazon had with the FTC, however Tuesday marked the deadline for the company to resolve on a lawsuit.

One Medical is a membership-based main care supplier with areas in the USA. Amazon dropped an identical service shortly after shopping for One Medical, and a key focus of the investigation was whether or not Amazon selected to purchase a competitor fairly than compete with it.

The particular person with data of the investigation stated that whereas the FTC had critical issues concerning the deal, it might have been a difficult case.

An FTC investigation into Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot, maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, remains to be ongoing, as is a broader antitrust investigation into the corporate that ought to result in a lawsuit later this 12 months, in response to two consultants in that investigation.

An Amazon spokesman declined to remark.

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