Federal Trade Commission v. Tenet Health Care Corporation
Eighth Circuit
186 F.3d 1045 (1999)
Tenet Health Care Corporation (defendant) owned Lucy Lee Hospital in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and agreed to acquire the only other Poplar Bluff hospital, Doctors' Regional, planning to convert it into a long-term care facility. The FTC (plaintiff) sought to block the merger, proposing a geographic market defined as a 50-mile radius around Poplar Bluff -- an area from which the two hospitals drew 90 percent of their patients -- and the district court granted a preliminary injunction, crediting the FTC's proposed geographic market and finding a substantial likelihood the merger would lessen competition; Tenet appealed.
Whether the FTC adequately proved that a proposed hospital merger would result in a merged entity possessing market power within a properly defined relevant geographic market.