Notícias
CADE challenges Grupo Unimed's acquisition of Fundação Ouro Branco
The Office of the Superintendent General of CADE (SG/CADE) submitted for review the acquisition by three cooperatives of Sistema Unimed (Unimed Conselheiro Lafaiete, Unimed São João Del Rei, and Unimed Inconfidentes) for the external control of Fundação Ouro Branco (FOB).
FOB is a member of Grupo Gerdau and operates healthcare facilities in the municipalities of Ouro Branco, Conselheiro Lafaiete, and Jeceaba, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. FOB operates a general hospital and laboratory diagnostic services in Ouro Branco; a medical centre and a laboratory in Conselheiro Lafaiete; and only a medical centre in Jeceaba.
The acquisition would promote vertical integration of Unimed System's cooperatives in health insurance and FOB's medical and hospital services - FOB's general hospital in Ouro Branco, FOB's medical centre in Conselheiro Lafaiete and Jeceaba and FOB's medical diagnosis-related services in Conselheiro Lafaiete and Ouro Branco.
The evidence revealed a strong indication of incentive and ability to foreclose, from input to customer foreclosure, on vertical integration involving general hospital health insurance and medical diagnosis-related services in Ouro Branco. For both cases, the Department of Economic Studies of CADE (DEE/CADE) issued a technical opinion confirming the existence of incentives for foreclosure, supported by vertical arithmetic.
Due to the foreclosure of the healthcare market for competing health insurance companies, beneficiaries of rival private healthcare plan providers may be unable to access Ouro Branco’s facilities, which are considered the best in the region. There is also a risk that Unimed could remove the FOB competing hospitals and laboratories from its network. Since Sistema Unimed is the main health insurance supplier in the region, this exclusion could harm competition.
According to the SG/CADE, structural remedies cannot be applied to mitigate the potential harm to the competitive environment. The remedies would be overly burdensome for both CADE and merging parties without restoring competitive market conditions.
Therefore, the SG/CADE directed the case to the Tribunal and recommended the blockage of the transaction. After the case submission for a final decision by the Tribunal, a commissioner will be assigned for a close analysis, followed by the adjudication of the collegial body.