R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha wants to be more aggressive in pursuing consumer protection and antitrust cases against big business, but says he needs more resources to do it.
Neronha, a former U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who became attorney general in January, says the reason is twofold: doing more to protect the public from flawed business practices, and generate more state revenue through settlements.
He has two types of cases in mind:
• Multistate litigation against companies, such as the current lawsuit his office and attorneys general in other states are pursuing against makers and distributors of opioid medicines for their role in creating what plaintiffs see as a “public health crisis.”
“These are cases where the attorney general would be suing for violations of the state’s consumer protection laws,” including unfair or deceptive trade practices, he said.
• Antitrust reviews and investigations of proposed corporate mergers, such as the proposed acquisition of Care New England Health System by Massachusetts-based Partners HealthCare, which the latter backed out of earlier this summer.
“Antitrust reviews are a highly specialized area of the law,” Neronha said, adding that big mergers can affect services and prices for large portions of the public.
The state’s Hospital Conversion Act requires companies involved to pay state costs for reviewing some aspects of mergers and similar deals, but the law doesn’t cover antitrust matters, he said. Those costs fall directly on his office.
In June, the General Assembly turned down a bid from Neronha for extra funds. He unsuccessfully sought to tap into settlement money his office had collected, so he could hire and train more lawyers and support staff to focus on multistate and antitrust cases.
The House Committee on Finance didn’t support the request because additional staff were added to Neronha’s office in 2018 “and there were several staff vacancies at the time of the [2019] request,” said Larry Berman, a spokesman for House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello.
Without more specialized staffing, however, Neronha says his office may not be able to join some multistate cases, or it may get reduced settlements compared to larger states that devote more resources to such cases. His office couldn’t say if it has passed up on joining such multistate cases in the past.
Neronha says he’ll again seek more money next year from lawmakers.
House Minority Leader Blake A. Filippi, R-New Shoreham, who has pressed Neronha’s office in the past for more information about how settlement monies are used, favors giving Neronha extra funds as long as it pays off.
“If we can spend a little money that results in getting more money back to the state [from settlements], then it’d be foolish not to try it,” Filippi said.
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Blake@PBN.com.
