The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Thursday to block UnitedHealth Group's planned acquisition of data-processing firm Change, which works extensively with rivals of the insurer.
United said the deal would "increase efficiency and reduce friction in health care, producing a better experience and lower costs" and blasted the DOJ's theories as out-of-step with "the realities of the health care system."
Since the 1980s, many competition scholars have insisted "vertical" deals like United's purchase of a service provider more often created efficiencies than opportunities to undermine rivals, and those experts have often left analysis of data to privacy regulators.
The lawsuit is the latest sign that President Biden's antitrust enforcers are eschewing various aspects of recent decades' antitrust consensus in the face of corporate consolidation and the digital economy.