News
Hospital sues CSL, Baxter, claiming price fixing on plasma products
The Age, Melbourne, Australia
A small publicly-owned hospital in Missouri has launched a class action lawsuit against Australia’s biggest health-care company, CSL, and its main rival, Baxter International, claiming a conspiracy to fix the prices of life-saving blood plasma products.
Lawyers for Pemiscot Memorial Hospital, which services several counties in south-east Missouri, allege CSL and Baxter had illegal agreements to restrict supply and push up prices through co-ordinating their individual output.
It comes one month after CSL’s failed $3.1 billion takeover bid for Talecris Therapeutics and allegations of market manipulation used at the time by the US Federal Trade Commission to block the deal.
The hospital is relying heavily on the statements and findings of the FTC in June that claimed that CSL, Talecris and Baxter operated as a “tight oligopoly” and had learnt they could maximise profits if each company did its part to pull back on supply to avoid driving prices lower.
In documents lodged overnight with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, lawyers argue there may be thousands of class members that suffered losses from inflated prices. They have asked the court for a jury trial.
Pemiscot Memorial’s complaint seeks to represent US buyers of blood plasma proteins from October 1, 2004, to the present.
The complaint is also seeking unspecified damages.
A spokeswoman for CSL said the company would vigorously defend the court action and that the claims were baseless. She also downplayed the validity of the original statements made by the FTC that had led to the class action suit.
“Public statements by the FTC were designed to ensure that the merger did not go ahead; there is no legal basis to suppose any wrongdoing on the part of CSL.”
