N.Y. Public Health Law § 2999-aa: Antitrust provisions, state oversight

§ 2999-aa. Antitrust provisions, state oversight. 1. In order to

promote improved quality and efficiency of, and access to, health care

services and to promote improved clinical outcomes to the residents of

New York, it shall be the policy of the state to encourage, where

appropriate, cooperative, collaborative and integrative arrangements

including but not limited to, mergers and acquisitions among health care

providers or among others who might otherwise be competitors, under the

active supervision of the commissioner. To the extent such arrangements,

or the planning and negotiations that precede them, might be

anti-competitive within the meaning and intent of the state and federal

antitrust laws, the intent of the state is to supplant competition with

such arrangements under the active supervision and related

administrative actions of the commissioner as necessary to accomplish

the purposes of this article, and to provide state action immunity under

the state and federal antitrust laws with respect to activities

undertaken by health care providers and others pursuant to this article,

where the benefits of such active supervision, arrangements and actions

of the commissioner outweigh any disadvantages likely to result from a

reduction of competition. The commissioner shall not approve an

arrangement for which state action immunity is sought under this article

without first consulting with, and receiving a recommendation from, the

public health and health planning council. No arrangement under this

article shall be approved after December thirty-first, two thousand

twenty-eight.

2. The commissioner or his or her duly authorized representative may

engage in appropriate state supervision necessary to promote state

action immunity under the state and federal antitrust laws.