WOONSOCKET – The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau and its competition bureau are both participating in the agency’s investigation of the 2007 merger that created CVS Caremark Corp., an FTC official said last week.
Richard Feinstein, the competition unit’s director, disclosed the two bureaus’ participation at the annual spring meeting of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
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The FTC has been conducting a “nonpublic investigation” of CVS since last August, the pharmacy giant disclosed in November. At the time, CVS said it was “cooperating in the FTC’s investigation and is voluntarily producing documents and other information on a rolling basis as requested.”
Little more is known about the probe because it is taking place behind closed doors. An FTC spokesman told Dow Jones the consumer protection and competition bureaus frequently work together because their jurisdictions overlap.
The FTC opened the investigation after months of pressure from unions, lawmakers and an independent pharmacists’ group, all of whom argue that the $27 billion merger of CVS Corp. and Caremark Rx Inc. in 2007 has damaged competition – charges strongly denied by CVS.
