Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) are companies that negotiate prices for drugs, devices, and other medical products and services on behalf of healthcare providers, including hospitals, ambulatory care facilities, physician practices, nursing homes, and home health agencies. Often, GPOs are owned by their member providers. They do not take title to or possession of medical products. Rather, the central purpose of GPOs is to enhance the quality of the services delivered and lower their members’ operating costs by reducing transaction costs and negotiating lower prices for supplies than providers might otherwise obtain on their own. As part of improving efficiency in the supply chain, GPOs also provide a range of additional services to healthcare providers that may lower costs or improve operations. © Federal Trade Commission
Group purchasing organization
Institution Definition
Case Comments
Facts. SARL MPH Distribution, which wholesales agricultural products to supermarket chains, filed an action via its liquidator for the restitution of sums it considered to have been wrongly received by various Casino Group companies. At issue were the validity of sums corresponding to credit (...)
Commentators won’t complain, and neither will practitioners who need clear rules and guidelines (see the comments by J.-M. Vertut, Lettre de la distribution, June 2023, to be published in this issue): for some time now, the rulings handed down by the specialized chamber of the Paris court (...)
Older people will remember that, as early as 1996, the so-called Galland law sought to promote " fair and balanced commercial relations "(L. n° 96-588, July1, 1996). Thirty years later (or almost), the legislator is still rambling on, claiming to " strengthen the balance in commercial (...)
Context. Relations between car manufacturers and their suppliers, subcontractors and other equipment manufacturers are often tainted by asymmetries in the balance of power in negotiations. These asymmetries under the background of cost hunting and ultra flexibility, can lead to behavioral (...)
Facts. In 2013, the company OC Residences, a builder of individual houses, undertook to deduct from the amount of the receivable of its subcontractor 3J Charpentes SARL, an exceptional discount of 2% under the tax credit for competitiveness and employment (CICE) granted by the State to (...)
The important Eurelec ruling, handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union on December 22, 2022, should not be hastily presented as a resounding victory for large-scale distribution and, in mirror image, as a bitter failure for Bercy, which the European judge would henceforth have (...)
Facts and procedure. It will be recalled that in a press release dated July 22, 2019 (Press release n° 1354) B. Le Maire and A. Pannier-Runacher announced a summons before the Commercial Court of Paris against four entities of the E. Leclerc movement (Eurelec Trading, Scabel, Galec and ACDLEC) (...)
The Paris Court of Appeal, on referral from the Court of Cassation on March 29, 2017, had ruled that dispensing pharmacists who had opted for the SRA pursuant to Article D. 5125-24-1 of the CSP could claim the communication of GTCs reserved for dispensing pharmacists (Pyxis Pharma / Cooper), (...)
While it regularly attracts the attention of competition authorities who apprehend, on the basis of anti-competitive practices law, certain deferred entry agreements or even acts of disparagement (see also Aut. conc., 16-D-01 of January 20, 2016 on practices referred to in Article L. 420-1 of (...)
The Minister of the Economy summoned three hypermarkets of the Carrefour brand located on the island of Reunion, as well as their central office, the company Profima, the four being subsidiaries of the same company (GBH). He accused them of having subjected their suppliers to a significant (...)
On July 14, 2022, Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella presented two sets of conclusions in two cases in which the Commission, suspecting exchanges of information at national level between Casino and Intermarché concerning the conditions of downstream distribution, had ordered the respondents (...)
Following the decision of the Constitutional Council of March 25, 2022 declaring the accumulation of sanctions against the same perpetrator for concurrent breaches to be in conformity with the Constitution, the Administrative Court of Paris rendered its decision on June 23, 2022 in the case of (...)
Eurelec Trading, a cooperative company under Belgian law created in 2016 between the Leclerc supermarket chain, a cooperative of merchants of French origin, and the Rewe group, a cooperative of merchants of German origin, operates as a central purchasing office for supermarket products for the (...)
Avoiding a denial of justice at all costs is the leitmotiv of the ruling delivered on May 12, 2022 by the Economic and Financial Regulation Division of the Paris Court of Appeal on the appeal lodged in the Polynesian refrigerator case against decision no. 20-D-18 of November 18, 2020. In this (...)
This article was first published in the Lettre de la distribution published by the Centre du Droit de l’Entreprise of the University of Montpellier. Facts. A supplier, Guy Guérin (the Supplier), based in Charente Maritime, is a wholesaler of fresh fruit and vegetables. Transgourmet (...)
Articles
During the seminar organized on January 29, 2021, Marie-Laure Allain - Director of Research at the CNRS, Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique and member of CREST and Ombline Ancelin - Partner in charge of the Competition practice at Simmons & Simmons, discussed the articulation between (...)
These articles were collected following the Seminar ’Buyer power and supplier platforms merger: What role for competition authorities?’ organized by Concurrences on 21 February 2019 in Paris. The first contribution focuses on the legislative and jurisprudential difficulties in containing the (...)
After an alignment of French rules to European rules, the two sets of rules have evolved differently from one another. The topic is once again at the forefront, following the first Google case, but even more following the ECN+ submission, which stipulates that all NCA must be provided with (...)
This section selects books on themes related to competition laws and economics. This compilation does not attempt to be exhaustive but rather a survey of themes important in the area. The survey usually covers publication over the last three months after publication of the latest issue of (...)
This set of three papers is derived from the training session organized by the Concurrences Review that was held on 29th March 2012 in Paris. For Gildas de Muizon, Economist and author of the second contribution, the market power of supermarkets must be assessed locally. For this it is (...)
This set of three contributions are derived from the conference on "competition law and distribution" organized in Paris the December 14, 2011 by Concurrences Review and Vogel & Vogel. For Louis Vogel, author of the first contribution, the Court of Justice states in the Pierre Fabre case (...)
Both aspects of the grocery retail sector regulation, i.e. the rules on unfair behaviours and those governing the market structures have evolved in different ways since 2005. Further to the Competition Authority’s opinion of 17 December 2010 discussions moved toward the relevance of more (...)
This article reproduces the opening papers delivered at the AFEC conference on contractual practices and competition law in Paris on October 25, 2010. According to the Professor Chagny, the examination of the links between contractual practices and competition law lato sensu reveals (...)
One year after the Modernisation of Economy Law (the so-called LME) entered into force, some aspects of the law still have to be perfected. At the beginning of the second round of commercial negotiations under the scope of the LME, this article aims at highlighting the main principles of the (...)
One year after the adoption of the Modernization of the Economy Act and the first round of commercial negotiations under this Act, the Youth Comity of the AFEC (French Association for the Study of Competition) and the Comity for Company Projects and developments of the AFJE (French In-House (...)
Law no. 2008-776 dated August 4, 2008 on the modernization of the economy (“LME”) amended article L. 441-7 of the Commercial Code, inter alia by eliminating the notion of “distinct services” that had been introduced by the Dutreil law dated August 2, 2005. Certain consequences ensue from this (...)
La puissance d’achat a fait l’objet ces dernières années de nombreux rapports et forums en droit de la concurrence. Dans le cas français, elle est sans doute appelée à jouer un rôle accru dans le jeu concurrentiel en vertu des réformes récentes de la réglementation de la distribution de (...)
The Law on the Modernization of the Economy (“LME”) was passed on July 23rd, 2008. It provides for numerous provisions. Some of them amend French legislation applicable to trade negotiations between suppliers and distributors. LME was presented as the last step of the reform of legislation in (...)
Events
1st Webinar of the « 1st Distribution, competition & restrictive practices Conference » organised by Concurrences, in partnership with De Pardieu Brocas Maffei and Fidal, with Paul Csiszar (Director - Markets and cases IV: Basic industries, Manufacturing and Agriculture, DG COMP), Esther Bitton (Head of Antitrust, Casino), Emmanuel Durand (Partner, De Pardieu Brocas Maffei), Jean-Louis Fourgoux (Partner, Fidal) and Joël Tozzi (Deputy General Rapporteur, Autorité de la concurrence).
Seminar organised with Daniel Fasquelle (Assemblée nationale) and Emmanuel Combe (Autorité de la concurrence) by Concurrences review in partnership with Gide Loyrette Nouel and Extent Economics.